Geezer dole

F has been either a lawyer or a senior politician his entire adult life. He’s married to a lawyer who is also now a politician. F has a pension from being finance minister and MPP in Ontario, and he will have another after being finance minister and MP federally. His wife, Christine Elliott, will also have a political pension. Once F’s done in Ottawa, he’ll surely find seats on many corporate boards, and be invited as a partner into one of the larger Bay Street lawgopolies. His wife may run for premier. And win.

In short, this family is set set. F and Christine will have a household pension income in retirement of at least $310,000, indexed and never-ending.

Intellectually, I have no doubt he knows the impact his OAS budget change will have. But emotionally, not so sure. His wealth certainly will shield him from ever experiencing what the loss of $6,000 a year might be, and he will remain wanted, employed and important for as long as he wishes.

As you know, the feds this week began a process which will make everybody now under the age of 54 wait two years longer to get an important part of the public pension program. The OAS is a universal benefit paying about $540 to all who hit 65. In eleven years, that moves to 67. And it could be pushed off to 70.

In addition, wrinkly old people will be encouraged to defer taking this money, starting next year. The feds will bribe them 7.2% for each year they delay, for up to five years. So, if they wait until age 70, they’ll get a third more cash, which will last until they croak.

Why is this happening? Simple. This public pension thing costs a mint. Taxpayers now shell out $41 billion for the OAS, as well as a guaranteed income supplement (GIS) which gives another $700 a month to poor people. This tab increases by $2 billion a year. At the same time, the feds don’t raise enough taxes to run the country, which means they must issue IOUs (bonds). The shortfall has been as much as $40 billion lately – about exactly what the old geezers have been costing us.

The solutions are to raise taxes (ain’t gonna happen, yet), cut spending (F could barely find $5 billion to nip over three years in a $260 budget) or reduce entitlements (bingo!).

There’s also the issue of intergenerational pissing matches. With nine million boomers about to snorfle and suck their way through pension and health care billions over the next two decades, the country’s fiscal situation will grow only more dim. Many economists (like the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page) believe we’re entering many years of a ‘structural deficit’ in which spending on these two items alone, thanks to demographics, will gut national finances. In other words, there aren’t enough working saps to pay for the retired ones.

How did this happen? Is it fair? Should we pay people just because they get old? Can we afford pensions and health care for everyone?

Beats me. But I know this. The very existence of these geezer benefits has lulled way too many people into doing diddly about their financial futures. I’ve given you the stats time and again. Half of us have no savings. The average RSP is big enough to last just six years. Four in ten have trouble paying monthly bills. Forty-three percent might fail a 2% mortgage hike. Eighty per cent of TFSAs are full of (yikes) cash. Debt’s endemic. But seven in ten have houses.

See what I mean? Nobody listens to me. Real estate beats retirement, ten times out of ten. Granite is irresistible, while it’s hard to get horny about growing old. And judging by a slew of comments on this lamentable site, w-a-y too many people believe they can actually get by on old fart pogey.

Of course, you can’t. Not in a city (where 80% of Canadians reside), regardless of whether you have a paid-for home or not. You might endure, but there will be little joy. Hardly the conclusion that life merits.

And now it promises to get a little worse. Two fewer years of government cheques.

This is the correct fiscal decision. No question. But it breaks a social contract. And the current government never mentioned the need to do this when elected a few months ago. Tacky and gutless.

But if leaders wanted us on a more sustainable path, they’d abandon policies pumping houses and stop pretending anyone can live on the geezer dole. F failed the test. There are millions of boomers who think they’ve played by the rules, now house-rich and investment-poor. Little do they know the revenge their real estate-deprived children will exact when the realization hits that they need to bail, because CPP and OAS are SOL.

No, it’s not the government’s fault. This is but a taste of what’s to come. Just wait til Parliament teems with Millennials.

“We are about to find out that economics and finance has a far bigger impact on your life than politics, and if you don’t believe me let me finish with a very clear declaration, and hold me to this, come back at me years in the future.

The sovereign debt problems along with the costs of an aging population are going to revamp society in the most profound way, and the part that worries me, that includes violent social unrest, and those who don’t understand it are just going to be road kill along the way.”

Michael Campbell (the brother of former B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell) made the above statement on his “Money Talks” radio show last Saturday on radio station CKNW in Vancouver, B.C.

If anyone wishes to listen to these words for themselves click on the following link to CKNW’s audio vault enter March 24 in the date drop down box, 8:00 AM in the time drop down box and then click on “listen”. When the audio starts to play, move the slider ahead to 39 minutes and 30 seconds to hear the quote. (Put your mouse on the bar just above the “listen” tab, click the mouse, hold it down and then slide the pointer ahead on the bar. You have to release the mouse to see where you are, and then repeat the process again one or two times to get to the 39 minutes and 30 seconds mark.) You do not have to register on the website to use the audio vault. It is strictly click and play. CKNW’s audio vault stores program audio for a period of 30 days.

Reviewed a CMHC insured mortgage the other day. Got me thinking about how bad this is going to get and what looney-bin boomers are doing.

5% down. Guess the age? 80 years old. An 80 year old has been insured by CMHC on a 30 year amortization. They will be 110 by the time it is paid off…if they make it and set a world record. You’re kidding me right?

No. About half of the mortgages I am seeing amortize into the individual’s 80s and 90s….

..That the economy in Canada is a lot worse, perhaps a hell of a lot worse, than what the government and politicians have been telling us the past while…

Prior to the last election Harper said he couldn’t bring on the harsh medicine which was required because they had a minority govt. So, now they have that majority and what do we get? For the Conservative base a huge disappointment and head scratching by the rest of the folks…and the NDP not knowing what hit them..

And I voted Conservative ( yes I know Garth nobody is perfect) but what’s their excuse now??

Yep, I really figure we’re in deep doo doo now… Time to buy condoms, gold and a ticket to Fantasy World..

It makes me very sad to picture old folks who have contributed so much to Canadian society and their respective communities end up in relative poverty.

What does it say about our economic system when folks who contributed their working life (selling their labour as a commodity) and reproducing society by raising children end up with little mains to sustain themselves?

Our economic system is not broken. It is faulty and rotten at its core.

The Conservatives are hoping that we will remain calm, and passively accept their unfair changes to OAS and GIS eligibility. We are being told that it is our fault that we were born when we were born, and that it is we who must accept the blame and the burden for the unsustainability of the current OAS and GIS parameters.

This is not a question of sustainability. This is a question of priorities. The Conservatives could afford to reward their wealthy friends with generous corporate tax cuts and a tax system in which a person making $1,000,000 or more a year pays the same tax rate as a person making $150,000 a year. They can afford to spend billions on proposed fighter aircraft. Hell, they could even afford to reduce the GST from 7% to 5%, which every credible economist still contends was politically advantageous but economically unsound.

But when it comes to sustaining current OAS and GIS guidelines, from an increase of 2% of GDP now to 3% of GDP in 2030, their claim is, “Sorry, you 54 and younger folks, it’s just going to cost too much. So reset your retirement plans, babies. You’re on your own to make up your new two-year penalty. Good night, good luck, and we wish you pennies from Heaven.”

I was born in November, 1962.
Shame on you Jim Flaherty.
I will never forget this. Never!
Don’t you ever think about sending me a birthday card.

Great post Garth and i totally agree that many of us think that the Government exists to take care of us in our old age. Me and my husband are in our early 40’s and have taken steps to pay off our mortgage years sooner (in 11 or less years) and save more in our RRSP’s. The challenge is to also find the money to beef up our sons’ RESP as we don’t want either of them to have a student loan. That is no way to start out independent 20 something life.

So, the age was moved to 67 for OAS -no surprise and unfortunately that will just be the start. So many countries have been pushing their retirement ages, it only makes sense with the demographics.

What i wonder, is how people with modest lower middle class incomes are going to have any kind of decent retirement when the rules of the game are a moving target and they are not focusing on putting aside savings.

So many live for today, that i fear that those of us that have been saving since our early 20’s will then later in life have to pay higher taxes to bail out those that just lived for the moment. I don’t mind paying my fair share and I do not begrudge the boomers their benefits, but I am not cool with having mine scaled back (and we will qualify for the max CPP) when the time comes to subsidize those that goofed off during their 30’s and 40’s or more.

I still remember the day I found out that CPP contributions were not put into a separate fund, but spent into general revenue. I couldn’t believe it.

Politicians have lied to everyone for years. They lulled people into thinking (in order to keep us spending) that when they retired, they’d get these benefits. The contributions ended up being just another form of taxation really, to be spent on whatever.

If these benefits and plans were not there – had never been there – I truly believe people WOULD have lived differently, saved more for their future. People need to take care of themselves because we see what happens when we rely on politicians to do our thinking for us.

Inflation has been the real killer. A lot of people did save, only to turn around and find that what they saved is not worth very much anymore. This is what has to stop.

If you want people to save for their retirement, at least let it be worth something when they get there.

This news has soured me, especially that the boomers is exempted. My husband and I are 35 and 33, we realize we are not retiring. I am very worried about the legacy being left to our children. We will not be voting PC again – and we are Albertans.
On an aside: I do not think the boomers or later generations will be continuing the trend to live longer. They did not live as healthy as the great depression generation, and had more accesses. Maybe a decrease in longevity helps save resources for our children and grandchildren!

These cons are a bunch of scabs. They don’t give a shit about working class people at all.

check out this bill C-377 they’re (most likely) going to pass. And for you anti-union losers, just wait and see what happens to everyones wages when our government gets there way and ends all unions one day. This country is really starting suck .

@ 15 countylover . The first cracks in the post secondary education business model( boil on the but of humanity) have arrived .You know the one that steals our kids future loading us all with debt before the kids get out of school . Charging for education is elitist , immoral and down right stupid . And google will in a few short years will eat them alive . They plan to educate us all for free. This link is the first crack in the wall. Get ready for more.http://www.udacity.com/

One thing further: if people had have saved for their retirements, there would not have been the Home Depots, the Starbucks, or a Macdonald’s on every street corner.

Corporations would NOT have liked this. They want the velocity, the churn, the spend, spend, spend. What do you want? For people to save for their retirements, or spend?

This is a huge Ponzi scheme, and they never end well. Where were the politicians who knew the truth? They were silent, too busy taking campaign contributions from corporations who were flush with cash from all the soon-to-be sucker retirees.

For anyone in Gen X or later (born 1964 or later) do not expect either of those to be A) functional or B) existent when you start to look forward to retirement.

The math just does not work. If F raised the age to 67, arbitrarily and enforced it immediately, there might have been a chance, but pushing off the start until the boomer “pig has gone through the python” has doomed the entire system.

However, he will be long gone from politics by the time those changes take full effect in 17 years.

That is also not counting what stresses the aging boomer cohort will inflict on the already faltering health system in the meantime.

For the past 25 years, as a “Gen X” individual who realized the facts at an early age, I have been living under the assumption that our generation will not see a (soon to be defunct) penny from the government in our old age. Even though we have been forced to pay ‘into’ it our entire lives.

The April 2012 issue of MoneySense magazine ranks the 35 best places to live in Canada. Only 2 BC communities made the list (at #15 and #35). More suprisingly, the list of top places by weather only has 1 BC entry (Victoria).

It turns out that BC (supposedly the BPOE) isn’t even the best place in Western Canada.

I was just reading the phase in part of the proposed legislation and it does not seem unreasonable.

It was only a short time ago when Carlyle’s parents took it you called it the government stipend in total scorn. You felt they were losers for even contemplating it as a means to supplement their income.

OAS was implemented in 1952 as you know and the age eligibility was 70. It was dropped to 65 but phased in between 1965 and 1969. To adjust it again to 67 hardly seems unreasonable.

Finally a wake-up call for anyone not serious about saving for retirement. Life is full of choices. You don’t need the cigarettes, the designer clothes, the expensive shoes, the latest Apple dodad. No kid needs an iphone. I don’t have one, my kids don’t either. Do you really need two cars? Really? We have home cooked meals and splurge on fresh fruits and veggies. Hubby and I have saved more than $2 million (not including property) – and that is after the crash. We don’t retire for another 8 years. I am expecting nothing from the government and I suggest you do the same. I am not saying you have to live the life of a miser – we are very happy with our lives – but you have to at least be aware of, and be prepared to make, the hard choices.

OAS is not a pension plan, we didn’t pay into it like CPP. It is a social program. Garth correct me if I am wrong but I think when it was first introduced it could only be collected at age 70. So how did we get to 65??
The bottom line is we cannot afford this as country. It has to change, it is not pleasant but this had to happen. Anticipate more changes, like a lower OAS clawback threshold.
As a society we have become far to used to instant gratification and not doing any forward planning(like saving $). Exactly what Garth has been telling us. Live within your means and plan for tomorrow. Unless of course you would like to pay a great deal more taxes so the government can look after us.
As an aside Garth – do you collect a MP Pension?

Some history: When OAS was introduced in 1952, the eligibility age was 70. Since the average (male) life expectancy then was about 66 years, the average man did not get *any* OAS.

In 1965 to 69, the eligibility age was phased down to age 65. By then, the average (male) life expectancy was about 69 years. So, the average man received OAS in the last 6% of his life.

Now the average (male) life expectancy is now about 79 years. So, before yesterday’s changes, the average man will receive OAS in the last almost 18% of his life.

With the recent change in eligibility to 67 years, the average man will receive OAS in the last 15% of his life.

So, OAS for the average man has gone from getting OAS from 0% to 6% to almost 18% and now down to 15% of his life.

Can our society afford to pay OAS for the last 15% of lives? Or will it need to drop again maybe all the way back down to the last 6% of lives, which means no OAS until age 74 (assuming expectancy remains at 79).

I’m betting the latter. In my retirement planning, OAS is earmarked to pay for only the green fees, not the groceries.

If you are talking about sustainability, why don’t you mention how Harper’s neo-cons have made it more difficult for environmental charities to operate and easier to fast track big polluting and environmentally-destructive resource projects?

Unless you are some kind of neo-con wing-nut extremist, taking care of poor seniors (through OAS) is a proper and downright moral use of taxpayer money. I am only guessing, but one could logically think that OAS has direct economic benefits as poor seniors are spending ALL the money in local groceries, variety stores and hairdressers etc. They ain’t socking the money into Swiss bank accounts.

I agree with Claudia. OAS could be clawed back for people with means, and I would pay more in GST to fund the system provided the money is carefully targeted to relatively poor seniors.

But I also feel that babies born into poverty should get supplemental nutrition and educational opportunities at the start of life.

dang, I just missed the cutoff. 53 until July. Seems like this is going to pit us “young boomers and gen x-ers and gen y-ers” against “the classic boomers”.

Why the F didn’t F give us some warning. Oh right, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

The real question is why didn’t they didn’t do the math on a clawback. I think if people have prospered and saved and have, say, $60K of retirement income and a house, the government doesn’t need to “assist” them. Not when the “assisters” ie taxpayers are making less than them, anyways.

I see some comments that the $500 OAS is chump change or beer money etc….but for people who don’t have big RRSP’s, a paid-off house etc, and/or a company or government pension plan $500 can make the difference between living a decent existence or eating cat food.

– disallow working while collecting any pension whatsoever.
– make it so that every working person pays into CPP
– rewrite the rules regarding calling back/rehiring retired employees (particularly in government and teaching)

@ 31 Social Contract? I didn’t sign one. Did you?
Yes . Every time I paid my taxes. If you ever collected EI or got education through them . You sucked the money right out of my families pockets . I paid and paid into your pocket and didn’t get a cent . If you would just for a few seconds do the numbers you would realize that by the time you are ready to collect . We the boomers will be dead. The neocons are counting on dividing us so they can conquer . If you think like them . then they have us all . Can you not see the straw man . We are all in the same boat while the neocons sail away with the money .

People (I now refer to as cattle) are been lead to a cliff where they will soon begin a record setting free-fall that this country has yet to see…ever!

The bottom line is that this budget, and the governments thinking makes absolutely no fiscal sense at all.

For example, think about your own personal budget, imagine your costs (inflation and the ridiculous increase in housing costs) are inflating at record numbers but you continously make the same wage….oh…and you decide to give a little back to the company you work for (the Gov lowering corporate taxes). Now if costs are increasing at record levels, and revenue is not…….well it’s F-in simple math people…..use your F-in common sense.

Jim Flaherty Canada’s minister of finance has introduced major innovations to the nation’s tax and savings system during his four years in Ottawa. The Oshawa-Whitby MP has ushered in tax-free savings accounts, registered disability savings plans, pension income splitting and the working income tax benefit, nicknamed WITB.

Meanwhile, the federal member for Oshawa-Whitby and his wife Christine Elliott, the provincial member, have been preparing their 19-year-old triplets for a life on their own. Galen, a McGill University varsity football player, spent the summer at broker GMP Securities LP in Toronto. Brother Quinn, a varsity soccer player the University of Western Ontario, worked in the research department at Macquarrie Capital Markets Canada also in downtown Toronto. (The federal Ethics Commissioner cleared both jobs.) Their brother John attends Anderson Collegiate and Vocational Institute in Whitby.

I pulled Flaherty aside during a garden party at his historic stone farmhouse and asked him what advice he’s giving his boys. Here’s what he said:

1. Education is vital

That’s the first and most important thing. Once you have a good education, the world is your oyster; really. You can live anywhere in the world and move from job to job. You can retrain and be trained.

Half of the jobs that people will work at in the next 10 or 20 years don’t exist now. So the idea of having some focused, narrow education, to go do this particular job for the rest of your life is unlikely.

Once you are well educated, and you are not afraid to work – because work is important, not just to make money, but to have character and to feel good about yourself – then save. Employing one’s skills and aptitudes creates a sense of purpose and accomplishment. Being useful is good for the soul as well as the pocketbook.

2. Spend less than you earn

I am a big Warren Buffett fan, and understand the miracle of compound interest. I think my sons are starting to as well, making money at summer jobs and so on. They are starting to see they can invest and earn interest and have that interest multiply.

These are the fundamentals and it will help later when they save for retirement. I try to encourage them to use tax-free savings accounts (TFSAs), because a dollar saved now is worth such a multiple over a lifetime.

TFSAs or registered retirement savings plans? Tax free accounts are more flexible. Then once you do that you go RRSP. But it is virtually an open field with TFSAs. In 20 years, most capital gains should be immune from tax if people use them properly. And governments will do nothing but raise the (annual contribution) limit over time. No government will abolish tax-free savings accounts now we have created them. They wouldn’t have the nerve.

3. Buy property

Real estate is a good long-term investment. But pay off your mortgage as soon as you can. Investing in the purchase of a principal residence early on is a tax-free way to accumulate capital. Then move on to another principal residence. Renting doesn’t produce capital gains.

The (boys) have grown up on a large piece of land in a fairly large house. I expect their experience (as adults) will be smaller and greener, probably more urban and transit focused. (Galen and Quinn were up early this summer to catch the GO train to get to summer jobs at Bay Street investment houses by 7 a.m.)

4. Be frugal

(There are) risks with debt, especially credit cards. We have given (the boys) credit cards in the hopes they will learn to manage them, because so many people get into so much trouble with credit card debt. The tendency some young people have is to over-extend themselves on credit to buy fancy houses and cars which they can’t really afford if, for example, interest rates rise. So, it’s important to avoid over-extending on credit, especially on depreciating assets such as cars.

I would also really discourage them from buying expensive homes and cars.

We will see what they actually do when they get out of university, whether they buy expensive cars. (Flaherty senior drives a Chevy) I consider that such a waste; money you could use doing other things.

Jim Flaherty Canada’s minister of finance has introduced major innovations to the nation’s tax and savings system during his four years in Ottawa. The Oshawa-Whitby MP has ushered in tax-free savings accounts, registered disability savings plans, pension income splitting and the working income tax benefit, nicknamed WITB.

Meanwhile, the federal member for Oshawa-Whitby and his wife Christine Elliott, the provincial member, have been preparing their 19-year-old triplets for a life on their own. Galen, a McGill University varsity football player, spent the summer at broker GMP Securities LP in Toronto. Brother Quinn, a varsity soccer player the University of Western Ontario, worked in the research department at Macquarrie Capital Markets Canada also in downtown Toronto. (The federal Ethics Commissioner cleared both jobs.) Their brother John attends Anderson Collegiate and Vocational Institute in Whitby.

I pulled Flaherty aside during a garden party at his historic stone farmhouse and asked him what advice he’s giving his boys. Here’s what he said:

1. Education is vital

That’s the first and most important thing. Once you have a good education, the world is your oyster; really. You can live anywhere in the world and move from job to job. You can retrain and be trained.

Half of the jobs that people will work at in the next 10 or 20 years don’t exist now. So the idea of having some focused, narrow education, to go do this particular job for the rest of your life is unlikely.

Once you are well educated, and you are not afraid to work – because work is important, not just to make money, but to have character and to feel good about yourself – then save. Employing one’s skills and aptitudes creates a sense of purpose and accomplishment. Being useful is good for the soul as well as the pocketbook.

2. Spend less than you earn

I am a big Warren Buffett fan, and understand the miracle of compound interest. I think my sons are starting to as well, making money at summer jobs and so on. They are starting to see they can invest and earn interest and have that interest multiply.

These are the fundamentals and it will help later when they save for retirement. I try to encourage them to use tax-free savings accounts (TFSAs), because a dollar saved now is worth such a multiple over a lifetime.

TFSAs or registered retirement savings plans? Tax free accounts are more flexible. Then once you do that you go RRSP. But it is virtually an open field with TFSAs. In 20 years, most capital gains should be immune from tax if people use them properly. And governments will do nothing but raise the (annual contribution) limit over time. No government will abolish tax-free savings accounts now we have created them. They wouldn’t have the nerve.

3. Buy property

Real estate is a good long-term investment. But pay off your mortgage as soon as you can. Investing in the purchase of a principal residence early on is a tax-free way to accumulate capital. Then move on to another principal residence. Renting doesn’t produce capital gains.

The (boys) have grown up on a large piece of land in a fairly large house. I expect their experience (as adults) will be smaller and greener, probably more urban and transit focused. (Galen and Quinn were up early this summer to catch the GO train to get to summer jobs at Bay Street investment houses by 7 a.m.)

4. Be frugal

(There are) risks with debt, especially credit cards. We have given (the boys) credit cards in the hopes they will learn to manage them, because so many people get into so much trouble with credit card debt. The tendency some young people have is to over-extend themselves on credit to buy fancy houses and cars which they can’t really afford if, for example, interest rates rise. So, it’s important to avoid over-extending on credit, especially on depreciating assets such as cars.

I would also really discourage them from buying expensive homes and cars.

We will see what they actually do when they get out of university, whether they buy expensive cars. (Flaherty senior drives a Chevy) I consider that such a waste; money you could use doing other things.

I have been thinking about this whole real estate scam and I am onside that the govt did not make any changes. Why? just because these credit conditions exist today does not mean people have to use them. My wife and I don’t…..its letting the “free” market work. What I do not agree with at all though, is CMHC is used and abused as it is and that the govt lets this occur.

If people want to blow their brains out on houses and debt, let ‘em, just don’t look to taxpayers to save you like the automakers do.

#31 LJ on 03.30.12 at 9:52 pm
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And the kicker is you’re free to leave any time. So you chose to stay in Canada, well it appears from your perspective you are choosing to take it all your life. Why would you do that to yourself?

#31 LJ…. exactly right and well said. Gen X’ers know the score. It’s only boomers that are whining, because they fell for the MYTH of the SOCIAL CONTRACT. The idea is noble, but the bankster puppets everywhere derail the grand plan everytime.

And we know that the CPP is a form of theft from us from each and every paycheque, money that we will never see, but we haven’t been able to do diddly about it since we began working… oh well, we Gen X’ers will continue to roll with the punches until it’s our turn and fiscal sanity will once again prevail.

If you are a married couple is the income based on combined income or individual income? Is the calculation made based on the gross income or the net income after the other taxes? Thanks in advance.
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Individual income and based on gross.

#14 Deb on 03.30.12 at 8:49 pm
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You know what this whole OAS thing is? It’s a step (albeit a small one) toward an NDP government (or a liberal government that is able to redefine itself).

#22 backwardsevolution on 03.30.12 at 9:22 pm
I still remember the day I found out that CPP contributions were not put into a separate fund, but spent into general revenue. I couldn’t believe it.

Politicians have lied to everyone for years. They lulled people into thinking (in order to keep us spending) that when they retired, they’d get these benefits. The contributions ended up being just another form of taxation really, to be spent on whatever.

If these benefits and plans were not there – had never been there – I truly believe people WOULD have lived differently, saved more for their future. People need to take care of themselves because we see what happens when we rely on politicians to do our thinking for us.

Inflation has been the real killer. A lot of people did save, only to turn around and find that what they saved is not worth very much anymore. This is what has to stop.

If you want people to save for their retirement, at least let it be worth something when they get there.
.——————————————————-

SAving is only half the equation, you need to invest to. Whats the point of saving if your money doesn’t grow?

Here are some links you might be interested in. You can be sure that the post-secondary business model will undergo major revision, much to the detriment of unionized faculty and staff. There is huge potential to get “educators” off the public teat.

I think people are finally realizing that nothing is free and yes, someone has to pay. Politicians have been over promising for years to get elected but have very little left to offer.
Sure, the NDP can offer to double the CPP, but won’t tell you how they will pay for it.
You cannot expect $5 worth of public services with only $3 in revenue. It will catch up with you sometime and for us the time is now.
So when Mulcair at the federal level or Dix here in BC make big promises ask them how they will pay for it.
My guess is they will turn and run or tell you how bad the present government is.

I just wish I could find a way for a tax slave to opt out of CPP altogether. I’d love to keep the couple of grand every year for my own investment portfolio…..

if I could have doubled it three or four times over my entire working life, I’d probably be just as well off…….bonus would be having a lump of funds in my own portfolio instead of a promissary note from an agency whose policy is directed by liars and fools.

So, here’s the deal: Clean break. I don’t want anything from you, government, as long as you let me keep my CPP contributions.

I’ll even grudgingly let you bastards keep the contributions from the first 13 years of my career as a tax slave (maxed every year).

Flaherty gets rich…along with his mental midget buddies; meanwhile I can just about hear him say “let them eat cake”.
This Country is going to be flying in bumpy weather, and I have a feeling a lot desperate and upset folks will be doing the Molotov two step, when they realize they are being thrown under the bus.

Canada will never balance the books. Flaherty is dreaming if he thinks that revenue will go up and we will not be deficit shackled, for the next couple of decades.

Now, let’s buy some F-35’s to make Harper’s cronies happy, and complete this disaster.
Gad.

The changes F has made does nothing to alleviate the financial burden the younger generations have towards the elderly – in fact his budget only serves to make this blatant fleecing a part of the law. The generational wealth transfer is now legalized and it’s unconstitutional law.

Upping the age of retirement for the generations after the baby boomer doesn’t address the “baby boomer fiscal dilemma” – it only serves to enhance it. Sacrificing the youngest boomers (who are less populated than the older boomers) as a token/pawn isn’t fooling anyone.

Laws made by our government should be universal. You can’t make laws of privilege based on people’s date of birth. This is discrimination. This is unconstitutional. If the conservatives universally upped the eligibility for OAS to 67 for ALL Canadians – that would be different. As it stands today, it’s unconstitutional. As far as I’m concerned, younger Canadians shouldn’t be afraid to take this to the Supreme Court as a class action lawsuit (not that I expect the Supreme Court to do anything).

In addition, the conservatives have conveniently cut Elections Canada. This is a regulatory body for our elections that’s currently investigating the conservatives for fraudulent electoral activity. This is blatantly unconstitutional. If we were a 3rd world nation, the U.N would be sending in the troops and conducting a full investigation of our electoral process based on the following actions alone.

This is a budget of cowardice and selfishness. As much as I disagree with the centre-right; this budget doesn’t even fit within conservative ideology. This budget is only about selfish individuals in the current conservative government trying to protect themselves.

Harper has essentially alienated his own voters under the age of 54 and has left them in an awkward position.
F doesn’t see this as a loss because younger people tend not to vote conservative. Perhaps he sees this as a clever political play. This also serves to appease his current baby boomer voting base. Though, he forgets that young people eventually get old and start voting conservative. A conservative government that screws the younger generations as they get older is a recipe for political suicide. We will not forget this day – mark my words – the conservatives have set themselves up to never win an election the next century.

Perhaps I was too generous when I stated F “forgets.” Most likely he doesn’t give a crap about the future of this nation or even that of his own party because when SHTF he plans to be already retired; away on some remote tropical island. I expect the coward to run like a little weasel – this whole budget is an individual exit strategy.

What does it say about our economic system when folks who contributed their working life (selling their labour as a commodity) and reproducing society by raising children end up with little mains to sustain themselves?

Oh, the economic system is supposed to save money for your retirement now?

Oh come on. Anyone who thinks missing out on a couple years of OAS is going to impoverish them in retirement is in no position to retire in the first place. This pittance of a payout is a joke. No wonder they call Canada the Nanny State.

Do F and his wife need to wait longer for their deck chairs, or have they been assigned already?

The savings from the proposed move will be double what people think. 1) raising the age 2 years saves 2 years, that’s the easy part. 2) people will have less money and the poorer you are, the sooner you tend to die. A little bonus on top of the savings.

In time there will be no OAS at all. We don’t need a crystal ball to know 1) the real estate market will collapse and 2) world stock markets will have the worst plunge ever on record soon. Forget about the OAS completely as it may only be around a couple more years. Just another good reason to retire somewhere other than in Canada.

” In other words, there aren’t enough working saps to pay for the retired ones. How did this happen? Is it fair? Should we pay people just because they get old? Can we afford pensions and health care for everyone?”
———————-
Hello…isn’t this the reason why we swung open the doors to immigration? Millions of people pouring in (mostly youngish) to offset the tax deficit caused by boomers retiring? This has been Ottawa’s line for the past 4 decades. We’ve grown from 20 million in 1970 to about 35 million now. That’s a 75% population growth. Where has all this extra revenue gone? Something doesn’t add up…

I visted tnl@tb regarding a mortgage. her opinion and the banks was that they were not impressed that the budget didnt address housing/debt. she stated that the bank(s) will be addresing that soon. she even told me there is no shame in renting.beats scrapping by. I have some freedom. My divorce lawyer said more or less the same thing few days before. I may be better off trying to build on what I have.

Years ago the light bulb come on over my head: My little business was paying both my wife and I an income, and deducting the required 10% CPP… but there is no way there will be any money left to pay me a pension when I retire.

So I stopped paying income and, instead, switched to paying ourselves dividends from after-tax corporate earnings. I end up paying about the same amount of tax, but dividends require no CPP to be paid. No more funding Baby Boomer pensions for us.

-
“In short, this family is set set. Once F’s done in Ottawa, His wealth certainly will shield him from ever experiencing what the loss of $6,000 a year might be, And it could be pushed off to 70.” — Don’t doubt that for a second. Why decrease instead of increasing the GST to 10%, which would have given a healthier balance sheet over the past few years?

Because politicos never do what they say. “I’m all right Jack, keep your hands off my stack.”

“. . . the feds don’t raise enough taxes to run the country, . . .” — Cue the HST and / or new and higher taxes. Heck, they may even tax chemtrails in the sky!

“. . . these geezer benefits has lulled way too many people into doing diddly about their financial futures.” — On this, I have no sympathy.

For folks who are now, or were in the workforce, where has the self-discipline gone to pay oneself first? Again, these are the dimwits who give all a bad name because of their own shortcomings.

“And the current government never mentioned the need to do this when elected a few months ago.” — Should anything else have been expected from a bunch of lying yahoos?

“The solutions are to . . . reduce entitlements (bingo!).” — So while MPs are more than happy to live a life of luxury by cutting sheeples’ costs / benefits, we get the privilege of paying more costs, like these.
*
#23 Small Steps — “I do not think the boomers or later generations will be continuing the trend to live longer.” — Good point. It has been stated that a lot of parents are going to outlive their children, so charities may eventually benefit from what we leave in wills.

A friend today ranted a bit on facebook about the OAS, mostly young people commented, and then one woman wrote: ‘What can I say? 61 and loving it”. I thought “fair enough” but then… then… a man commented “What can I say? 65 and collecting :)” !!!

Wow. WOW. I was kind of shocked. Was he gloating?? Was he twisting the knife? I tend to get into major debates/arguments on facebook because I don’t hold back and there was no way I was going to let that second comment go so I posted “I wouldn’t trade being younger for any amt of money, but hey- enjoy!” … no response yet.

I’ve never thought boomers were selfish (some of my friends would be considered late boomers/cusp of gen X- I’m mid gen X myself) but that threw me. Or perhaps I took his comment to seriously??

If the government claws back OAS at $70k, maybe we should claw back parliamentary pensions starting at $70k, too? I mean, how much would THAT save various governments? While it would alienate the top 1% of ex- politicos, it would be be a huge hit with the rest of the electorate.

Gartho, sorry I didn’t get to post my usual 20 times a day but I passed out in my own vomit. The wifey was away and I had a bottle wine left over from last night’s strip poker. My son walked in a one point and said, “Craig, what are you doing to that bed sheet?” I had used one wifey’s bed sheet to cover myself like a sumo wrestler but to my stupid son’s eyes, it may have looked like a diaper. Ah, youth is wasted on the youth. Anyway as for the budget, if you’re expecting to gov’t to look after you when you’re old or sick, good luck. That’s why I started my own business that encrypts emails for end-users. Sure the only people that would benefit from such a service is either paranoid people, organised criminals and pedophiles, but who cares? I’m making money and showing the whole world what you can become without a formal education and a moral compass! Now as for Jim Flaerty, good on him. Take the money and run!

This budget has at least $6 billion in corporate welfare targeted to Alberta’s energy and natural resource sector coming from all of our taxes. Payback time, in Harper’s mind, for the NEP of the 70s and onward. Alberta will win win win over the next 4 years while Ontario and Quebec will get punished punished punished.

The federal Cons (under the sound bite of “giving more power to the provinces”) have a plan to work with the Wild Rose Alliance in Alberta who will allow in private health care to work alongside the public system. The plan is to allow just enough private care to begin, to then allow American private insurers to sue the Canadian government under NAFTA rules to get full access and diminish the Canada Health Act. The feds can then claim they were forced into it.

The best way to describe the Cons under Harper is patient and methodical.

Very insightful post! Evidently, F is not factoring in the externalities – the unanticipated costs – of gutting OAS (especially for the working poor) like the financial costs of increasing a social stratification that leads to envy, anger, and class conflict (which harms/impacts everyone)… and greater socio-psychological insecurity eventually leading to i.e., walled/gated communities for those who have the means to be imprisoned by their own prejudice and an understandable increase in lawlessness amongst a less fortunate population fighting to avoid scarcity or destitution. If I’m overemphasizing my point, I do apologize, but I’m a little agitated. Someone with influence needs to reshuffle the deck in Ottawa… as F seems to have tunnel vision. Where is the old PC party? Why is MacKay, the son of a mother with strong NDP roots, let alone so many Conservative MPs agreeing to such a simplified misunderstanding of our socioeconomic system?

The thing that really surprises me these days is the number of times I hear people in their 50s talking about being middle-aged. Does everyone plan on cracking the 100-year mark?

My father did. He was healthy well into his 60s. He ate well, exercised, didn’t smoke and only drank a glass of wine with dinner a few times a week. He retired early, enjoyed his retirement (traveled and volunteered) and boasted that he’d live to see a hundred.

In his 70s, he was suddenly diagnosed with cancer, Diabetes and a heart condition. His heart stopped at the age of 76.

My mother wasn’t so lucky. She became disabled in her late 50s and had to stop working. She was bounced from hospital to hospital and languished, in pain, bedridden and riddled with cancer, for 18 months before she finally, mercifully, succumbed to her disease. Watching her suffer and having to fight tooth and nail for her to receive a modicum of quality care in our public system convinced me that there are some things MUCH worse than death.

I’m in my early 40s now. I am middle-aged and have been for a while now. Although I take after my father in that I eat well, exercise, don’t smoke or drink at all, I was recently hospitalized due to a health crisis. Thankfully, it’s not cancer.

A little more than a year ago, I lost a childhood friend to cancer. I lost 2 cousins in my 20s and another one in my 30s to accidents, complications following emergency surgery and Muscular Dystrophy.

My friends are all having to cope with the declining health of their parents now. A few have already lost one or more parents. Cancer is often the cause. One close friend is struggling to cope with her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis at the age of 61.

It’s all well and good to cite statistical figures about the average life expectancy of the average Canadian male or female, but how are these figures playing out in real life?

How many of us really get to enjoy a long, healthy and happy retirement? Even if someone does live to the ripe old age of 79, for example, what about the quality of life at that age? Have you visited a retirement home lately? It is a depressing sight.

Sure, life should be lived in the moment and to the fullest. However, it is really, really important to plan for illness in old age. Please make sure that you are not at the mercy of our failing health care system when you get older and are diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

A financial buffer at the end of life is most definitely very important to have. However, the vast majority of us should be planning on spending our nest egg on a quality retirement home, rather than golfing and cruises.

Eat, drink and be merry ……. Went to visit three WW II vets at our local Vet’s Hospital yesterday. For all who take life for granted and believe ode age is just a state of mind, get out and explore on your own, then take stock of your own life. The more things change the more they remain the same … even for “F” .

Pennies will soon be gonzo, so then you must find ways to save nickels to find some sun shine as time fades the colours of your mind.

Linda # 109 : Great post. Refreshingly realistic. Are you sure you’re a Canadian? Death is pretty much a voodoo subject in our western culture.

When one lives in denial of death then it becomes easily convenient to live in denial of the more unpleasant facts of LIFE.

Illusion and magical thinking has become de rigueur. So the 50 year old creaky stiffs think of themselves as merely middle-aged. And,more importantly, they believe this Peter Pan nonsense with every fibre of their beings.

Think of life as a pie divided into 8 pieces. By the time you’re 60, if you make it that far, 6 of the pieces have already been eaten. That leaves you with 2 ‘ retirement’ pieces that aren’t exactly the most appetizing. The bottom pie crust is soggy with age and the top crust is brittle and dried out. No other choice but to choke it down.

I’m glad you recognize that there are things much worse than death. Not many people are there yet. It will be a lesson painfully learned.

Western allopathic medicine has its good and bad points. But what it excels at, what it has absolutely mastered and taken to the level of a fine art is this – needlessly and gratuitously prolonging the pain and suffering of those who are terminal.

The vast majority of our health care dollars are not spent on health care. They are spent on very expensive dying… often AGAINST the wishes of the dying person.

Call it illusional or delusional. I call it plain immoral.
“Think of life as a pie divided into 8 pieces. By the time you’re 60, if you make it that far, 6 of the pieces have already been eaten. That leaves you with 2 ‘ retirement’ pieces that aren’t exactly the most appetizing. The bottom pie crust is soggy with age and the top crust is brittle and dried out. No other choice but to choke it down.” Record these words, and read them again when you are 60. You will laugh, or cringe. — Garth

Not only are there going to be less people working when compared to those who are retired, but those same working individuals are going to be working less hours than their predecessors did. This means less contributions to tax, pension, unemployment and healthcare. This will mean that those fewer 20 and 30 somethings will seem like half their number in terms of efficiency (ie. hours worked and contribution to government coffers).

If you look at the healthcare sector for example, the number of general practitioners per capita has not changed but 50% of the population in most cities can no longer get a general practitioner. Same number of workers but less services. This is because all of those new doctors do not want to burn out like they saw their predecessors do (understandably so). More young men and women are taking years off to raise their young children and more people are working half-time and managing to live on less TODAY (don’t know how much they are putting away for retirement).

At the moment, most of the brunt in this sector is being born by the 40 and 50 somethings, who, due to retiring 60 somethings are having to work more hours to make up for people at either end of the spectrum working less.

What does this mean for us the public ? With an increasing aging demographic and unmatched services (as I have just explained), our healthcare system will eventually stop working and governments will be FORCED to react by making serious changes at the last minute (as opposed to looking ahead and starting yesterday).

Garth, you are talking about living during retirement, meaning paying the rent and putting food on the table. I am talking about “living” during retirement, meaning handling frail health and actually being able to stay alive during retirement. With a worsening health care system, this will eventually become impossible and anarchy will rule. People with money will have access to private clinics and services (either here, where they are opening up in greater numbers .. in Québec one can even have private day surgery, or in the US where patients have access to ANYTHING for the right price). People without money will be forced to use the internet and over the counter meds to self treat and if they need to see a specialist, they will have to go to the emergency room since many will not have a general practitioner. Of course many people will not want to bother (as many old people are afraid to leave their homes) and we will see people in increasingly tragic situations.

THIS is what the government has failed to address. I realize they make transfer payments for healthcare but they also need to take a more active role in laying out a long term plan. For example, in terms of general practitioners which is a problem faced countrywide, we need either double the number of general practitioners working half-time or those same practitioners to work full-time. We also need some sort of homecare service so that our aging population (especially those who are not mobile) can be served at home. In addition, emergency rooms need to have a clinic section with general practitioners that is used for “non emergencies” so that true emergencies are not blocked by little kids with runny noses. At the moment it is the public that is bearing the brunt for these mechanisms not being in place.

These things are just a start but our aging demographic will not only mean a glut of houses on the real estate market as people run out of money and try to sell their biggest asset to become liquid. It will also mean more difficult access to healthcare, not just for the aging population but for EVERYONE. This is an even better reason to save your money .. in case you may need to cross the border to find a physician to treat you.

The Cons have dropped corporate taxes annually from 21% in 2006, to 15% in 2012, while in the US the rate is 35%. This equals a revenue loss of about $8B annually. This did not have happen, as corporate income was fine at a 21% tax rate. This whole budget and pension panic is government created.
The Cons are also trying to destroy valued added

manufacturing in Canada by shipping raw crude to the US and China, telling us that these new pipelines will create jobs. This is why the budget is streamlining the
environmental review process. They are cheating middle class Canada out of our heritage.

88 Foggy :
Hello…isn’t this the reason why we swung open the doors to immigration? ………Where has all this extra revenue gone? Something doesn’t add up…

I don’t have any hard numbers, and don’t feel like doing the digging because every source has an agenda…….

With that qualification, I am wondering if, on a per head basis, net costs for immigrants’ social services are actually a fair bit higher . By net costs I mean tax collected minus total cost for service received.

There is also the fact that over that time, the swivel service has grown ridiculously, putting government in all kinds of business that they have no business being in. That’s probably bigger.

@ Garth -“Record these words, and read them again when you are 60. You will laugh, or cringe. — Garth

No need. I’ll hit my 60th in just a few days. My top crust is still in good shape. No wrinkles to speak of and just a few silver strands mixed with the natural gold.

It’s the pie filling that has me concerned. Blood cancers run in my family. But, maybe that’s a good thing. Without excessive medical intervention, Leukemia derivatives are one of the more humane ways to die in this society.

Hi Garth,
I believe we need Pension Reform in Canada.This would make the playing field more equitable for all Canadians.All Canadians should have access to Public Pensions,Corporate Pension Plans etc.It make no sense why Canadians should pay for Gold Plated Public pensions with their Tax dollars yet too many have 0 personal pensions to rely on in Retirement.
Also Garth when will your next Book be out ?Have read all your books.

I don’t swallow the Zoomer myth that we are middle aged at 50 and I sure ain’t in denial about old old-age. I am surrounded by it, living in a suburb populated by 80 plusers none of whom have any quality of life. Read Susan Jacoby’s book “Never Say Die” if you want to see the side effects of just plain living too long. The rate of Alzheimers doubles ever five years from 65 on so by the time you hit your 90s you are almost certain to have it.

The median employment earnings in this country is not even at 30K and is falling so no #38 the average family cannot save 2 million by only eating home-cooked meals and giving up iphones. You need to keep your eyes open and actually see what reality is for half the people in this country. I used to chat to the woman who cleaned the office washrooms and she told me I was the only person who noticed her, the rest treated her as though she was invisible. She worked 2 jobs by the way, would go to another office cleaning job after the day shift was over but she couldn’t afford a bus ticket to visit her mother at Christmas. That is is the reality of most people’s lives, they don’t save 2 million, they live on family incomes of 40 and 50K, they experience workplace ageism that dumps them out of the workplace by 55 and they are invisible.

Their lives are of no consequence and no we cannot ever expect the 100K senior couples to give up a penny of OAS so that the bottom half can get it at 65. This country is lean, mean and nasty and populated by people who wouldn’t know empathy if it smacked them in the face. I seriously believe a lot of people enjoy seeing others suffer, it somehow validates their high opinions of themselves.

The only thing I can say through observing all the rich-ass retired people in my ‘hood is that once you hit the witching-age you are a nobody – an old millionaire and an old baglady are both identifical – they are both of no consequence. The minute you retire you are now nothing, you have no identity and in our society being old is the worst possible thing of all.

Don’t know what everyone is excited about. F did absolutely nothing regarding OAS. He simply sloughed it off to the next government who can just as easily change it back to where it was. This may end up being the NDP’s platform for the next election. Wouldn’t they be popular? The whole thing makes absolutely no sense.

Gen X’er who couldn’t help but grow up a little bitter about the boomers who crowded the career highway and wouldn’t let us pass. Can’t wait for them to get off the road but not so keen to see them suck up social resources just because of age. We SO need to move back to the principle of social security for the poor, not the well-off aged. Hmmm…and here we proudly protect against age discrimination in our HRA? I say, let them spend their OAS on condo fees where they’ll have great wheel-chair access. I’ll come buy their houses and land at bust prices.

obviously your mother taught you not to be selfish, and Christ (or Confucius 500 years earlier) taught you to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You therefore cannot wear the “conservative” label, but must bear the progressive/socialist opprobrium.

Deliberately prolonged suffering sickens me. And it looks like it sickens the vast majority of Canadians as well.

“A new Angus Reid poll shows 85 per cent of Canadian respondents believe legalizing euthanasia would allow an opportunity for suffering people to ease their pain, in addition to establishing clearer regulations for doctors with end-of-life decisions. Further, two-thirds of Canadians agreed that legalizing euthanasia would not send the message that the lives of the sick or disabled are less valuable.”

”If people want to blow their brains out on houses and debt, let ‘em, just don’t look to taxpayers to save you like the automakers do.”

Agree. Check the link below. This is what I paid $20,800 for back in Dec. of 1969 which represented 2.6 times my annual salary which was average at the time. P.I.T. and condo fees represented 1/3 of my (only mine) monthly salary. Interest was 9.75% at the time. I had to borrow the $3000 downpayment required to purchase the place having spent 5 years getting out of debt because of a fancy convertible I thought I needed at age 19. Was married at 21 like many did back then. Was the thing to do I guess.

I am one of those leading edge “geezer boomers” who seemed to be blamed for the following generations ridiculous spending habits and horniness for buying houses at these ridiculous prices. We didn’t have it as easy as some seem to think we did. One thing I made sure was that my sons would not be strapped with debt after getting out of school so a good chunk of my salary went to help them out when they left home at an early age. Both doing exceptionally well today which I am very grateful for. Both worked very hard to get to where they are today without any handouts. They were taught about money and leverage at a very young age and are grateful for that today. My job is done. Feel wealthy in many other ways than financial. Now I sit back, watch them grow old with me and enjoy my new little granddaughter. Life is good.

For those who wish to place the blame for what has happened to real estate look no further than the policy makers in Ottawa, lowest interest rates we will ever see again in our lifetime, the greed of developers, along with manipulating realtors and the real estate pumping media.

#71 Chris B on 03.30.12 at 10:57 pm
“Anyone whose retirement plans are completely thrown off by a change of $12k are screwed anyways. I’m looking forward to the days when us young folks gain control of the government …”
_____________
By that time, you’re all going to be old.

My Dad always used to say that Monday is no way to spend one seventh of your life. So to re-phrase the gist of your point, I guess you could say that the final seventh of our lives is just a succession of Mondays.

(Good grief, on re-reading that, even I’m depressed now. And today started so well!)

Now for a brief history lesson. In about 1991 the Federal Government raised the amount allowable for RRSP contributions. In 2000 they reduced the tax on capital gains from 75% to 50%. Some time last decade they increased the allowable foreign content in RRSP’s and in 2009 brought us the tax free savings account. Coincidences? Definitely not. For the last 21 years (or thereabouts) they have been trying to tell us to save more, and giving us the means to do so. In other words, they have been telling us to take care of ourselves as they (the government, that is) may not have the resources to do so as in years past.
The only drawback is these means to prepare for retirement favour the wealthy who have the money to save.

#105 BigAl (Original) on 03.31.12 at 3:02 am
“This budget has at least $6 billion in corporate welfare targeted to Alberta’s energy and natural resource sector coming from all of our taxes.”
_______________
I don’t understand. Could you be more specific.
I thought that those companies paid billions in royalties and corporate taxes. Explain.

detalumis # 121: “This country is lean, mean and nasty and populated by people who wouldn’t know empathy if it smacked them in the face. I seriously believe a lot of people enjoy seeing others suffer, it somehow validates their high opinions of themselves.”
***************************************

With the exception of psychopaths, we’re all born as empaths. Watch a group of little children. If one starts to cry in pain it usually sets off a chain reaction of discomfort or crying in the others.That’s empathy.

The lack of empathy you’re seeing among adults is the result of social engineering.

It’s the SYSTEM that’s lean, mean, and nasty. And it produces people who reflect those values.

Empathy and psychopathy are mutually exclusive. They cannot exist together. The bureaucracy has no FEELINGS… or conscience. By definition it’s psychopathic.

Your comments on ageing are right on the money. It is unfortunate other than readers of this blog can not read them. I am 61 years old and beleive Garth is wrong with his comment at the bottom. My wife and I have both experienced these with our own parents. We have had numerous discussions about end of life decisions when our time comes. Too many bleeding hearts in Canada, and gutless MPs’ in Ottawa. Do not forget, that “dying” is big business, huge, with much profit for corporations.

#115 Basil Fawlty on 03.31.12 at 7:46 am
“The Cons have dropped corporate taxes annually from 21% in 2006, to 15% in 2012, while in the US the rate is 35%. This equals a revenue loss of about $8B annually. This did not have happen, as corporate income was fine at a 21% tax rate.”
_______________
Aren’t the consumers paying the corporate taxes?
What am I missing here.

“The solutions are to raise taxes (ain’t gonna happen, yet), cut spending (F could barely find $5 billion to nip over three years in a $260 budget) or reduce entitlements (bingo!),which means they must issue IOUs (bonds). ”

ORRR – print the money and send the geezers a cheque. Believe it or not, the money would help the economy, not like bank lending (banks get the bonds)which just deletes future economic activity because the interest is such a future burden. And thats where were at, the money is gone and the loans and interest are outstanding.

I know all about the inflation theory between govs issuing bonds vs printing, but someone would have to prove to me that we don’t have inflation from the continuous bond issuance anyway.

Come on – all those people who work in low wage jobs with no company pension, no job security, and no prospects, no ability to save, who are living with $6 gasoline, will be asked to tough it out longer. These people should stage a national strike and we can see how quickly this country comes to it’s knees. No trucking, no gas pumps, no restaurants, no groceries, no Timmys, no walmart or CTC – need I keep going on?
If F went on strike no one would give a s__t.

There is no sunshine list for them. Go to the stats can site and see how little people make! Then they tax most of that away from ya. No wonder debt is endemic.

I’m not one of the working poor and I was born before 1958, but I’m fed up with the attacks against the working poor. Where is the government FOR THE PEOPLE? I voted CON in the last election – but I will vote AGAINST them next time over this.

Oh yeah – they can piss $1B away on G20, fireworks in Ottawa, scientist studying the rocks in Newfoundland and Polar bears up north, SWAT teams, Olympics, gun registry, and on and on, though we have no money for the working poor!!! And Ontrians should really be scared because the Libs have mortgaged your future to the limit.

What always amazes me is that after the money is spent – I didn’t see any of it. Where did it go?

And they want to spend on innovation – yeah right – like the government itself is so innovative that it knows anything about innovation. I see another boon doogle.

#124 Tony Right on 03.31.12 at 9:00 am
“Lets put all the boomers on an ice flow and set them adrift and start over. They broke it, we’ll fix it!”
________________
The problem isn’t with the boomer generation.
The problem is with your entitled generation.

#114 HOUSEHORNYHOUSWIFE: “We also need some sort of homecare service so that our aging population (especially those who are not mobile) can be served at home. In addition, emergency rooms need to have a clinic section with general practitioners that is used for “non emergencies” so that true emergencies are not blocked by little kids with runny noses.”

**********************

As a matter of fact, ‘homecare’ is being bandied about in the Okanagan — back to the 40’s? “What goes around comes around”.

The Emergency Department at KGH in Kelowna does, indeed, have two new departments.

Wait times would be cut substantially if the public used Walk-Ins. They have to start using their heads. I’ve seen patients come in with scrapes on their knees…adding substantial cost to our health care. These unneccessary visits are not free. The hospital will not turn anyone away. Their wait is often 4-6 hours….

Apparently, getting “financially educated” is not just a preserve of the working classes, as the account of Mr. Flaherty’s advice to his children demonstrates. I would add, however; that it’s far easier to get a good financial start in life when: a) you’re not worried about crushing student loan debt, b) you can get a great job placement right out of college, and c) one doesn’t have to the least bit concerned about their parents’ future monetary situation! Obviously, paying rent or a mortgage won’t be a problem for his siblings…another plus.

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s far easier to save when you’re being paid more than you choose to spend! Why is it always people who have access to the finest retirement & health care plans that are telling the rest of the great unwashed that they will have to learn to do with less?

The only thing I took out of this was again an unasked question, one I continually ask myself…how much is enough?

I’ve been aware of the magic of compound interest since I was 18, & by the numbers the OAS/CPP is the best deal going, if you live long enough to receive it! I’ve griped several times over the years about paying a few hundred bucks into it at tax time every year, but then I look at my parents & remember how much of a difference it made in their lives.

The only changes I would like to see are the funds being paid into a separate account to ease any concerns about “voodoo accounting” & a firm line for clawbacks…70K ain’t what it used to be! I’ll be “retiring” in 2025 so who knows where that amount should be by then?

To get back on topic, the escalating price of housing may prove to be the straw that broke the back of the “generational compact”…I see a lot of rage directed against boomers on this site as though there was some kind of master plan to wipe out people who grew up watching the Simpsons & getting i-everything…I wasn’t aware of this plot, but probably wouldn’t have participated even if I was…

Why would any intelligent person deny opportunities to others that they themselves enjoy? Or hope to?

Lastly, I see several postings re: raising the GST. Any look backward at the advent of the advent of western democracy will show that 1) sales taxes are extremely regressive, and 2) these civilizations were constructed with a proportional income tax. This is what allowed broad-based societal wealth, infrastructure, & safe & healthy communities to evolve & develop. And, yes; debt (government borrowing at all levels) was a part of that as well…the massive income tax cuts (principally directed at corporations) in the 80’s & 90’s were responsible for most of our ongoing “structural deficit”.

The intelligent & responsible use of funds (whether personal, in private business, or government) is an ongoing educational project as well, apparently. To repeat, putting OAS/CPP funds into “general revenue” accounts only makes sense if you plan on “robbing Peter to pay Paul”; or plan on blowing up hospitals, taking the bed count from almost 7000 to 2000, & then claiming a health care crisis (!) while siphoning the ongoing health care fees into, again, “general revenue”accounts.

(Btw, how come I’ve never heard the name of Kenneth Carter on this blog? Anybody?)

One more thing, I see a lot of invective against public-sector unions here. As if they were to blame for our ongoing deficit problems? A quick survey of the advent of these aforementioned western democracies will also show that unions were walking point in the fight for a more fair & balanced society. My personal experience with them hasn’t been great, however; but looking past my that I do appreciate their collective role in fighting for, & achieving, a lot of the benefits I now enjoy.

Those benefits would include but are not limited to: a sane working week, survivable wages, (sometimes) equal employment opportunity for a majority of the countries’ citizens, releasing the children from the mines, medical & pension benefits, (again, sometimes) & usually some form of redress against feudalistic employers. Not to mention a gradual halt to personal injury and/or potential death caused by these same employers, or more commonly their proxies, by protesting unfair/dangerous working conditions or demonstrating for increased wages.

It is a validation of their cumulative power (& by extension, the ability of workers to organize & seek changes in their workplace in particular, & the community in general) by the ruling classes that the severe assault was mounted against them (and continues to this day) by the Reagan/Thatcher regimes, & their ideological offspring. Observers of sufficiently untrammeled mind will observe that the organizers & leaders of unions are always at the top of the hit list in any country run by Generals, Juntas, Dictators, Criminal Corporations, & Narco-Terrorists…yet more validation of their potential power to shape society, by providing the potential for a countervailing force against those currently in control.

The powers behind the drones fear this vanguard of working class people more than anything. Beating up on the gold-plated pensions of Ottawa minions does not cancel out a 150 years of mostly positive advancement. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!

A retired public servant wallowing in a 5K a month pension ain’t pretty, but it won’t bankrupt the country.

92 Jimbo – CPP will be there in some form for you, but the amount received may be well below what is a fair
return on contributions. A quick calc shows that 35 years of 10% contributions at 5% will yield an income of about
2/3 for 25 years. CPP pays only about 1/4.

I am familiar with the dividends from small business, and yes it is rigged so that taxes collected are very similar with either approach. There may be a danger depending on the amount of income and its volatitlity. Paying yourself a wage can help smooth this and lessen taxes. This is the approach my accountant has taken.

I just have to say… OAS clawbacks to entitlement is a big story. Its cloud can blot out the sun shining on the glacially unfolding story of RE for a day because its changes will impact alot of lives going forward.

Some commentors who are younger and decades away from senior status or rich don’t have to worry about it effecting them any time soon and it seems that a number of them weakened by such an environment generate apathy towards the subject, i.e. they don’t care and in some cases assume its better because there’s a chance their tax dollars will find its way into their own pockets. (its a tough environment. Youth never thinks they’ll get old and the rich’s appetite is bated to keep wanting more, oh the challenges we face)

The verdict? For those one and the same, its all about them and I suggest they wake up. This isn’t the role a government is supposed to take. Good government treats people equally and fairly. Bad governments don’t. One can disagree but should be aware that at the same time they risk being successfully psychcologically profiled if they choose to do so. Just sayin’.

#14 Deb on 03.30.12 at 8:49 pm

Deb’s comment is absolutely right. Its a matter of priorities. Why is this government reducing taxes to the rich and business and blowing untold billions in an effort to make housing more unaffordable (through escalating valuations) in this nation while making seniors who have very little money pay for it?

Priorities… and from what I can tell, it reeks of ageism and income inequality. What, you don’t think so? The rich were never eligable for OAS and the middle class, do they really need it? Thats up for debate but the poor most certainly do, more than anyone. The simple message here is if you are rich, you are helped by this government and if you are poor, you aren’t.

The answer to OAS for me is simple. Reduce the income eligablity to between $30,000 and $40,000 and keep age eligability at 65 and it would to be studied thoroughly before a conclusion could be made (was F’s conclusion a product of committee investigation, I don’t think so). This proposal is a much deeper cut to OAS social spending then what F offers because its a hit to our senior middle class but going forward its likely needed and needed much sooner than 2023 considering the economic risk household debt now poses but the bottom line is that we can’t have poor seniors living on catfood. A clip from the link above:

“The Caledon Institute of Social Policy calculated in a recent research paper that only six per cent of seniors are affected by the OAS clawback and just 2.3 per cent receive no Old Age Security. The institute argued that lowering the clawback on OAS would save more cash for the federal government, without affecting the majority of seniors who have low or average incomes.”

The assertion that this will effect only 6.3% of seniors is likely based on the total numbers of seniors over 65, but for those who will be seniors between the age of 65 and 67 this percentage who have used OAS in the past and will continue to at 65 and beyond is way, way higher (I’m guessing its over 70%) and based on that intial assumption (2.3% of 6%), the above numbers from the link indicate more than 1 in 3 seniors receive no old age security and of this 1 in 3, the majority are technically broke or with equity tied up in a shack in the sticks so the OAS is going to have a dramatic impact on up and coming seniors who have nothing.

Claw back OAS to the eligability age of 67 and its 2 more years of catfood which should shorten their worthless lives (assumed so by some because they have no money right? Y’know, if your poor, your worthless) from chronic malnutrition furthering the cause for the heartless rich. (I didn’t say all the rich, just the ones without a heart and where do they originate? From the “pure selfish and thus, apathetic” group of course which we know will never be agiest)

So why does this government choose to reduce age entitlement as opposed to income entitlement? Why really? Because the homeless and dirt poor people living in poverty seldom vote. F did one thing right. He triggered a needed conversation. Aside from that, F played the wrong cards (again, long time pattern developing here). Changes will be needed far sooner than 10 years from now (the first of the boomers begin retiring next year and someone will have to pay for this ugly RE bubble once it bursts, of course it will be the middle class seniors included). Lets either hope this government comes to its moral senses or our electorate does in 2015.

Susan Eng, CARP VP of Advocacy, emphasized that CARP members are concerned about the proposed changes and “that the government should look harder, elsewhere for savings that they are proposing to find here.”

CARP’s position on the pending OAS changes has since been reinforced by multiple expert reports. A report released by the Parliamentary Budget Officer states that the OAS will continue to be sustainable for generations to come. Moreover, according to the official Actuarial Report on OAS, Canada will spend 2.47% of GDP for both OAS and GIS as of 2013. Accounting for inflation and the demographic changes, the percentage of GDP spent on OAS and GIS will only grow by 0.69% by 2030, for a total of 3.16% of GDP. By 2040, it is projected that the percentage will again decrease to 2.93% of GDP.

The general consensus of the consultation was that there is little justification for changing OAS. For many older Canadians, a small change to the OAS will be deeply felt, especially by those who are in greater financial need.

Please read the whole link above wherein Harper promised not to cut OAS before the election.

…………….

I printed out my OAS application and mailed it (registered) to Service Canada on Tuesday due to all the delays at Service Canada. Yesterday, I rec’d an application in the mail from them.
………………….
My hubby will qualify for OAS at 65 as he’s 56. Tho we’re DINKS, I think it’s totally unfair that others should have to work ’till 67 to receive OAS.

Don’t think I read where the PMO is cutting their communications/propaganda staff. Bunch of harpercrits.

The very existence of these geezer benefits has lulled way too many people into doing diddly about their financial futures. I’ve given you the stats time and again.

___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Perhaps for some, but the reality is that our beloved governments, corporations and central banks are encouraging us to borrow and consume as much as is humanly possible in order to continue to allow the top 1% to skim profits off the bottom 99%. They are confidence-spinners & fiscal necromancers selling us a bill of goods. The TSFA is great, but it usage suffers a the fiscal policy equivalent of the Sesame Street Effect:

Sesame Street was designed to help poor urban children. Its turns out (after several studies) , it benefitted affluent children most and gave them a leg up over their impoverished urban peers.

The TSFA in the end will only widen the gap between haves and have nots into a chasm.

(I have a TSFA, amazing retirement vehicle, only if you have the money to begin with!)

Honestly, I think it’s about time the government made some changes to the pension system. I am a 30 something that is not counting on ever seeing a dime. I figure this way, I won’t be disappointed and if I do get something – Bonus!

I just can’t figure out how the heck the government can’t see the link between these insane housing prices and people not saving for their retirement. They are making SURE with their current policies that people will be dependent on the system. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I just did my/our mortgage affordability via CMHC. I was shocked. I thought I made a mistake it was so high. I won’t say the number but the mortgage they would approve us for is 63% of our GROSS income. Our effective tax rate is close to 40%. How the hell would we eat, never mind actually pay into retirement?

As an aside, I stand to correct myself. Boomers begin retiring in 2015 and the point is, if the government is serious about tackling the impacts the retiring wave of boomers will have on social spending they need to act sooner. (Its got me wondering how much of an impact it will have on CMHC pension income assessments, this lack of foresight with housing policy seemingly never ends).

Gen X has been waiting for the boomers to get out of their way for a while now.

The problem is the boomers are still there…(many cant afford to retire yet even though they want to)

Now the Gen Xers have lots of experience, and should be earning great salaries…but “we dont need anyone with 10-15+ years experience”…we still have the boomers…we want people with 3-5 years experience (so we can pay them less).

Gen X has to lower their salary expectations and continue to wait…now retirement will be tougher for them too.

I grew up hearing Gen X was expected to be the first generation to do worse then their parent’s.

For many it appears to be true. Over educated, underemployed and under appreciated.

Let the boomers collect their piddly little OAS and sit in the casino. The faster we flush them through the system, the better off we will all be in the long run. Cannot wait until some fresh thinking hits business and government.

I’d like to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments of the OAS fallout for those of us under the age of 54.

I also want to add a different perspective on the aging poor scenario. My friend was one of the people who was forced into seniors housing due to health and a family that will not step up to plate to help him. He had no savings but always worked. I was able to get him into a seniors home.

In the beginning of his health problems I was able to get his unemployment and pension filed but because he was 60 didn’t qualify for OAS as the time. He was unable to care for himself so I needed to get him into a full service home. The region subsidized his stay through Ontario Works.

Now it’s 7 years later and with the cost of living increases in both CPP and OAS he no longer qualifies for the subsidy. What that means is that other things not covered by OHIP and the Seniors Drug Plan is all out of pocket now. Hearing aids, dentures and eye care are all expenses he is going to have to do without now because of this. But that’s not the real problem, since he was subsidized he was only allowed to keep a little over a $100 dollars a month to himself and most of that goes to personal grooming and clothing. There’s no phone or cable because there’s not enough money to have those simple luxuries.

But here’s the kicker. Because he no longer needs the subsidy the home can ask him to leave at any time and because of this he will have to try and a find a place to go under market rates. We started looking this week and all he can afford is a semi private room on his $1750 a month pension in an older badly rated home. All the nice homes start at $3000 a month for a studio and it goes up from there.

Ultimately this week has been a total wake up call for me. I better get my shit together because if I wind out like my friend, I’m totally screwed. Garth is right on everything he’s written about. If you’re not scared now you should be. Things are only going to get worse and you better start preparing for it.

“This country is lean, mean and nasty and populated by people who wouldn’t know empathy if it smacked them in the face.”
——————–

Perhaps you are also one of those unable to recognize empathy. The existence of this excellent free daily blog is an outstanding example of empathy.

But can the ant ever really be said to empathize with the grasshopper? I myself have given practical advice to friends and colleagues over the years (advice that was sought) only watch many of them fall into deep difficulties by doing the exact opposite. It seems my advice was simply not sexy enough.

What then should be my stance? Schadenfreude? Distain? Anger? No, none of these. Just sadness. That’s fairly close to empathy.

“One of the most cold hearted and rather mean spirited posts I have ever read on this board.”

I didn’t get that impression. I thought Detalumis was just stating his observations — harsh but certainly true for some. Unpleasant though they may be, such comments do provide balance to the discussion.

Anyone know how much money could be saved by legalizing marajuana and selling it as a source of tax revenue? Police, courts and prisons cost money and most of the people in that system are there because of alcohol.
I don’t and have never used marajuana and I just don’t get why we spend money on criminalizing it. Government saves money and collects more revenue. How is that wrong?

What F is doing is getting people with little or no money 10 years from retirement that believe the government will bail them out to wake up. Ask anyone 54 to 64. They actually think that the government will increase CPP and OAS, maybe double it. The Canadian Labour Congress and the looney left helped that delusion.

Sky Great posts today. I always read your comments and appreciate them. With a moniker like yours I once expected you to have your head in the clouds. I gave that name to my son 39 years ago and he ended up with a masters in philosophy before he got his feet on the ground and became a nurse. Daisy Mae– Appreciate your insightful comments as well. I like the okanagan contingent represented here. Kudo’s to Garth for some great writing lately. Cheers!

Entitlement projections are based on overtly optimistic GDP expectations, the true picture is worse than we have been led to believe.

The baby boomers are doing themselves no favors playing this political gamesmanship. The boomers are starting a generational war they cannot win.

This is the reality for those of us who come after the boomer wave. There will be no OAS. In the next 15 years based on deteriorating projections the age limit for my generation will need to be raised from 67 to 70, then the clawback limit will need to be lowered significantly. Finally, long before my generation can ever collect, OAS will need to be done away with entirely and simply become a transfer payment to the provinces to be treated as a welfare scheme. You will need to be destitute to receive it.

If the boomers want to save themselves its time to stop the games and have a frank generational discussion about the true future of OAS and entitlements in general. Using realistic projections these programs need to be put on a sustainable footing. Age limit for my generation will need to be raised to 70 and clawback limits need to be reduced immediately for everyone from 70K to closer to 40K and include component based on assets. The younger generation needs to be warned to start retirement planning in their 30’s because even with these changes the program may still not survive.

Continue playing the games of kicking the problem down the road and see what happens. At some point hard choices will have to be made and it won’t be pleasant. Or everyone can just put their heads in the sand, sprinkle some magic pixie dust and hope for 8% GDP growth to balance the books.

I’m 32 and place absolutely ZERO probability of drawing down OAS at 67… 77… or by the time they’re finished with my generation, likely 87. I talk to the guys at CPP everyday, the right side of their ledger is ballooning by the day while contributions are cratering. Only thing that’s saved them is they’re still using long provincial yields for the discount rate. Broke by 2040 at best, F knows this. Anyways, all I’m saying is that anyone who’s 45 or younger shouldn’t be relying on ANY form of gov’t assistance going into retirement.

As a genXer, I’m going underground. If it works, I will make lots of money tax-free. If it doesn’t, Harper has a jail cell waiting for me with free room and board. I don’t have kids so no need to worry about setting a bad example.

Some are Bill… and some aren’t. (take it with a grain of salt what I’m about to say, I’m not just talking to you but through you as this message is meant for readers as well) Take a walk through a few old folks homes some time and you’ll see it for what it is. Depression, alzheimers… some will put on some brave faces and some will have things to look forward to but overall a good chunk of them have nothing to do but dwell on the past and if they didn’t make the right choices… it causes them to wait to die (and be bitchy on the way out) and its not just those in old folks homes.

The longer seniors can live in their homes and/or work and stay engaged in society, the better their quality of life will be (such distractions save them from living in the past) but thats only if they stay engaged and embrace the constant of change. Their continued health and freedom depends on it. “Use it, or lose it.” You speak of karma, people who look after themselves have the best chance at quality of life as they get older but for the ones who don’t or aren’t that lucky genetically, those “golden years” are a myth so I’ll just cut to the chase (after I remind you to read the book Detalimus suggested you read or at the very least give the author 10 minutes).

A huge part that will define how we can find happiness in life is how well we are able to accept loss. Everyone loses what they have at some point in this life. First its our youth and good looks. Then its our mobility. For some, wealth. For others, opportunity. For most, our jobs. For us all, friends and family along the way, over time our health, and finally our lives and not necessarily in that order. Its how we handle this loss (and gains but more importantly loss) that separates whether we will end up with quality in our lives and this has everything to do with what we believe in.

Our beliefs will decide how much hope or hopelessness, faith or faithlessness and love or lack thereof is in our future to come, it all starts from within and I have to stress like as not, detalumis makes some strong points. You might not like certain generalizations being made which often exaggerate, but we are all capable of the same thing. Your point is taken but the point of a lack of empathy in this nation is still valid.

I believe there is a strong lack of empathy in this nation as well (maybe because I beside detalumis is sensitive to it) and it has everything to do with what we believe in. If you travelled to Japan and saw how the elderly is treated there by youth (not to mention how the elderly treat themselves and each other) it would come home to you (that too, is karma). Its entirely based on our beliefs, the environments that shape us (chosen or otherwise) and our connection to others but I think more than anything, it comes from too much judgment giving birth to pride and superiority over those who we judge. Most of us will never know the full circumstances to that which we by sanction/judge and as such, we blow it. The unforseen intangibles… there’s already too much hatred in the world, why add more?

Japan by the way, isn’t a one hit wonder. Empathy is also much more prevalent in parts of Europe, South america and Asia from what I have seen, it has to do with a stronger connection between young and old but mainly it comes from our beliefs which are mainly environmental and passed down to our children and our children to their children and finally… our grandchildren to us and the cycle repeats itself until the environments change as a whole.

Some people might say my life is in a rut,
But I’m quite happy with what I got
People might say that I should strive for more,
But I’m so happy I can’t see the point.
Somethings happening here today
A show of strength with your boy’s brigade and,
I’m so happy and you’re so kind
You want more money – of course I don’t mind
To buy nuclear textbooks for atomic crimes

And the public gets what the public wants
But I want nothing this society’s got –
I’m going underground, (going underground)
Well the brass bands play and feet start to pound
Going underground, (going underground)
Well let the boys all sing and the boys all shout for tomorrow

Some people might get some pleasure out of hate
Me, I’ve enough already on my plate
People might need some tension to relax
[Me?] I’m too busy dodging between the flak

What you see is what you get
You’ve made your bed, you better lie in it
You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns

And the public wants what the public gets
But I don’t get what this society wants
I’m going underground, (going underground)
Well the brass bands play and feet start to pound
Going underground, (going underground)
[So] let the boys all sing and the boys all shout for tomorrow

We talk and talk until my head explodes
I turn on the news and my body froze
The braying sheep on my TV screen
Make this boy shout, make this boy scream!

*** The above does not account for remodeling and additions in subsequent decades to the average square footage of the historical inventory which if removed would result in even smaller numbers.

What I am saying is; there is more to the reason house prices have risen so much than merely the demand for them by “Greater Fools”. Homes today are quite a bit different than they were in yesteryear. But just because the average size of a newly built home has recently begun to reverse the trend that “bigger is better” don’t expect the cost to be reversed by it as the savings are being put into trinkets. What is being built today are smaller “jewel boxes” adorned with much bling. But the cost of “bling” has come down in significantly as that “bling” is more commonplace. Granite can be had for a fraction of its former price and is working its way into what might be considered the most modest of new homes. So too is stainless and hardwood becoming a commonplace must have for all homes.

The component which has risen most dramatically is that component which without there would be no real estate market – land. Land is as it was. Land is just a whole lot more expensive today than it once was.

It is not the improvements upon the land it is the land. How many crops you can grow on it, how many sheep you can graze on it, how many customers can easily and readily find your business upon it, how convenient it is to your work and your children’s schools.

Land – limited supply in the face of an ever growing demand. You figure it out.

I am in high end car sales and I see debt horniness all around me. Ppl trying to finance or lease $100000 cars with 0 down or $10000 down, “can you do a 72 month term? “. Trying to roll the negative equity in their previous car into the new car payments, Its appaling, these idiots need a reality check! Hopefully the free money comes to an end soon, inflating the prices of everything.

Does anyone not think the dynamics of the bigger picture won’t make all of this very second order priority?

The image of Flaherty’s son taking the GO train to Union Station at 7am to go to a “Bay St. brokerage house” is outrageously depressing.

Doesn’t the kid have an internet connection? If so, why wouldn’t he use it?

Emotions are funny things. And when paralyzed in a long-term state of denial, the brain simply lays out conculsions needed, and then works backwards.

If the triplets were shown the relationship between Mark Carney’s crew and their dad, they would deny the facts…or in some way justify what has happened.

It’s surreal. The national paper in Chile is delivered to my home daily…it’s the same thing. It’s all the same. It’s coordinated. And it requires public denial to keep it running. Chile hit 7.2% growth in February..not a single inkling it’s all just filtered down funny money. Houses in my community ( single family) have doubled since 2007.

We all have the amazing internet connection. The issue is not wanting to know.

When we keep talking about “F”, it has the effect of cutting him out of the big picture of drivers, cause and effect…. and it fuels delusion.

In short, this family is set set. F and Christine will have a household pension income in retirement of at least $310,000, indexed and never-ending.

I think we have found an expense that can be trimmed.
Deduct $250 grand and put it towards national debt abatement and apply the same principle to the pensions and saleries of the rest of Canada’s politicians.
Any one that borrows canada into a black hole of debt should not be rewarded for it. Every little bit helps.

Now that the boomers have been given their break..again, F better not even think about raising interest rates or changing mortgage rules or increasing the GST or there are gonna be pitch forks a torches on parliament hill….or maybe I will just go to Timmies and ignore it all.

“This is the correct fiscal decision. No question. But it breaks a social contract. And the current government never mentioned the need to do this when elected a few months ago. Tacky and gutless.”

Come on Garth, the fact you’re still writing this blog, shows us that the public won’t do what is best for them, even when advised to.

They did let everyone know they’d deal with the deficit (it’s arguable that they are doing that admittedly!) – how else were the books going to be fixed. Not too many options that aren’t tacky and gutless.

#146 Daisy Mae on 03.31.12 at 11:37 am
#114 HOUSEHORNYHOUSWIFE: “We also need some sort of homecare service so that our aging population (especially those who are not mobile) can be served at home. In addition, emergency rooms need to have a clinic section with general practitioners that is used for “non emergencies” so that true emergencies are not blocked by little kids with runny noses.”
………………………

Yeah, I remember when the family Dr. would come to your house?? Oops I’m aging myself. Actually an elder bro. who lives with my S&BIL had an accident in mid Dec. & fell a little later. To make a long story short after various Dr. visits/xrays, etc. a surgeon said he should have had an ultrasound on his knee. Bro’s ligaments and muscle were totally detached from his knee. Surgeon operated and put a hard cast from his ankle to his groin. A week later he had 31 staples removed and now has a velcro cast on the same length. It will be mos. of phisio. Thankfully, they arranged for a wheel chair and 3 pronged walker. Surgeon was really upset that the original Dr. did not do his proper job.

I have a similar, but worse story. Won’t go into the details. Nurse across the street said I should have taken my Dr. to the medical board or court. Yeah I should have, but when you’ve been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer all you’re physical & mental energy has to go into fighting the damn disease. I had a 7 operation & was in the hospital for 7 days. Thankfully, I had DH and one of sisters who constantly told me that I would survive. That was 9 years ago. Not out of woods yet & never will be.

I’ll be fortunate to see 75, as well as my DH who has a genetically inherited disease. His Mom now is suffering from it. Not sure how long she’ll last.

The info below indicates that for people retired at the
age of 50, their average life span is 86; whereas for people retired at the age of 65, their average life span
is only 66.8. An important conclusion from Dr. Cheng provided the important results in the this study is that
for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of life span on average.

Just witnessed the Father in law retire and turn 70,
in the same year. He physically aged ten years in
one year, no thank-you.

Only fools will wait for 65 or 67, (or till your dead)
so the OAS changes are irrelevant.
Live a modest, long life, stop feeding the frik’in machine.
I know Garth…”but you got’ta live large” not buying it.

Great post today, Garth. Long range big picture stuff – read it and heed it I say.
I have realised one thing from reading the comments on this blog and that is a ” Canadian ” does have distinctive characteristics…
Such as… a belief that government can solve anything, politicians have the publics’ best interests at heart, that something can be gotten for nothing and finally last but certainly not least is the belief that nobody is responsible for themselves.
So there is such a thing as being ” Uniquely Canadian ” after all…

My DH has a biker buddy who works for the biggest car dealership here. He usually pops in Fri. eve. for a glass of wine cause he can’t at home as his wife has problems. He’s a sweet guy, but is way over his head in debt – they just can’t stop spending. Apparently, some days he’ll make $4 an hour (unusual) and other days $30 an hour depending on whether he’s working on cars under warranty OR not. Anywho, he was really tired and discouraged last eve. Never saw him so depressed like that before.

That’s a great post on the realities of mortality. The truth of the matter is people are greatly overrating their life expectancies and their quality of life as they age.

No offense to generation X-Y, but the idea that you’ve been groomed that you’ll have increased life expectancy and therefore the OAS needs to be adjusted accordingly is scientifically flawed.

The science as it stands has discovered that life expectancy is most closely related to socio-economic status and genetics. Gender, fitness, nutrition, access to health care, avoiding drugs, etc. are all second fiddles. Seeing that most Gen Y’s and X’ers will live poorer than their parents – it’s logical to assume most will have a decreased life expectancy; not increased.
The only exception is in genetics – if you have a history of working class families that can’t seem to die despite living the hard life; chances are you’ll live a long time too despite working nothing but shitty jobs.

Due to medical and mental reasons I wish not to discuss – I’ve been unable to get a college degree. This leaves me forever condemned to work slummy working class jobs. The average life expectancy of a working class male, as it stands today, is only 70 years. Put into consideration that living standards for the working class have actually decreased since the time of our parents as well. For example the working class earn much less, adjusted for inflation today, than our parents did.

This means in all likelihood, I’ll live to see the age 67 and not a year more. As morbid as this sounds, I can’t help but feel the Harper government is slowly but surely moving the OAS out of reach to ever be collected by the working class. This is the greatest example of class warfare – the working class pay taxes to subsidize the longer life expectancy of the professional class. Meanwhile, the working class die before they even get the chance to collect. This is the greatest example of a reverse Robin Hood society – it’s truly disgusting, yet applauded by immoral individuals’ right of centre the world over.

This is why I can’t help but to shrug my shoulders when the nice banking lady calls me up to “discuss putting my money towards retirement.” In most likelihood, I would be preparing for a non-event. I’ll be long past dead before the age decreed suitable to retire. Of course, from the perspective of a professional woman, she’ll most likely live to see 90 years. Therefore, she has no empathy or understanding at all from my position. Usually the discussion then turns to “how can I invest my money to help me right NOW?” Usually I’m always met with the same blank stare, followed by, “want to buy a 250,000 dollar crack shack in Spryfield?”

I definitely consider myself middle aged at age 30. I smirk at all the boomers who consider themselves middle aged at 50. I laugh at all the people who call me “young.” If boomers want to consider their selves middle aged, at least be tactful about it, say “later-middle aged” for example.

Just over 500 posts since the budget with some great comments and a lot of bok bok bok stuff arguing over entitelments and whose generation is the worst scavengers and pigs.

Nice way to divide and conquer whilst in the meantime the real bastards are the governments at all levels who through either sheer incompetence or by design or a combination of both continue to destroy the economic and social structures of our country.

The real people being Punked in this whole scheme are the taxpayers of all generations.

How in Hell can any society justify taxing and looting the most productive sectors of society of somewhere around 50% or more of their incomes through direct and indirect taxation and fees at all levels of government and yet supporrt and sustain and foster a system to have the same tax factory slaves buy a shitbox fo 10 to 20 times their after tax incomes.

Yup, and poised to skyrocket from 2015 on. Upon reflection… F introduced changes to the OAS that take effect more than 10 years from now and a fellow commentor is right in pointing out that other governments will be elected between now and then that will change this. Why wasn’t this an election issue, why the surprise? Did F really sewer OAS eligability when this budget passed into law doesn’t take effect for more 10 years? Should we really be upset with F regarding this issue? We’ve got all the time in the world to fix it… right? We should be giving F credit for sparking the debate, true?

The reason I’m upset with it is because this legislation HAS TO BE FIXED. Once again, this fed government didn’t get it right the first time and won’t most likely until they are gone. Thats the jist of it, its failed policy.

We know this much:

– boomers who make up 38% of the population over 2 decades will be retiring in droves beginning in 2015, not 2023 so this legislation comes too late if our government is at all serious about keeping social spending in control with OAS. What is this government really saying? Its not our problem to fix and judging by the date, its politically motivated (the next election comes in 2015).
– The idea of reducing eligability by age instead of income is surely to hurt the elderly poor the most. Is that fair?
– Priorities: There are a whole host of other choices that can be made in the arena of spending cuts not to mention taxation. Why are we reducing taxes (and running deficits) in the face of social spending cuts to the poor who need it the most?

In short, why is this government introducing a failed policy that has to be fixed with out public consultation? I don’t think there was even a study on this. Honestly, this is the best F could do? To me, its just another reason of so many others to vote them out next time out. They can never seem to get it right the first time. Sure, there’s time to fix OAS runaway social spending… if we vote for a different government in 2015 who’s got the stones to make the tough choices (and this may not make the 10 ten), so much for the “power” of a majority government, they are already thinking re-election (which can’t come, they’ved damaged the economy too much and whats eye opening is they behave like they don’t even know it) and what’s gnawing on my mind is how much influence has OAS had on fixed incomes? How many mortgages did CMHC approve on OAS guaranteed incomes that may not have a chance to be guaranteed?

I don’t know… I’m frustrated. First the Harper government eliminates surplus’s through undertaxation and creates a RE bubble that by all indications has greater household debt and RE values per capita than the U.S. and thats a feat because our incomes aren’t as high. Then they deny it and continue to bloat the grotesque credit bubble we already have in household debt. Mark Carney’s warnings on household debt and productivity? On deaf ears.

This government did everything they could to reduce productivity by pushing overdevelopment in housing. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Does anyone really think RE is the only employment game in town? Wars we don’t need, total F’s concerned with the environment, it seems like any thing scientific that can be used to delay or stop energy development is muzzled or banned and corporations come first with everything from taxation to environmental issues to public spending.

Am I alone in seeing this? Am I the only one disturbed by this? Everything the Harper government has done from robo calls to the way they finance political campaigns, its all just a tad greasy, y’know? From the pork barrel politics of our wonderful “economic action plan” (lets waste untold billions on projects that will never pay for themselves) to the latest “pick and choose” which corps get what for R&D spending and is the public aware of just how easily payback can come in the form of directorships and stock options in the walk back to private life? Its an eye opener to follow the careers of certain politicians as they step back into private life, poisoning the well for the rest. One needs to have a stomach for it because its overwelming.

Debt and Compromise –
“I am single have a awesome job in health care and OWN a condo that is not eating up my paycheques. Yes Surrey sucks but I am making good money and can walk to work in 5 min. from a condo I OWN.”

@184 High End Vehicles…. i too am in the auto biz, the majority of Mercs and Beamers are leased to the hilt, the most common complaint is that they all get poor fuel mileage, if they truly could afford to drive fancy labels fuel should be the their last complaint.

When are public service workers going to get a cut in their pensions? People in the private sector working for small business are going to have to work till they are dead while public sector union workers will be living the good life with their guaranteed pensions.

Going underground is an option I have in my line of work and I think I will be going that way soon. Makes me sick that I work my butt off so that government workers can live the good life.

one minor correction Garth.
80% of us are ‘urban’. StatsCan uses a population of 1,000 as ‘urban’. I live in a town of 8,000, 130km from the nearest city. I’m ‘urban’, but life here certainly doesn’t feel anything like a city.
It would be nice is StatsCan would actually detail how many live in actual cities, or city-suburbs, or say ‘within a metropolitan area’, or less than 50 km from a city, or…

The problem with such studies is that they often do not eliminate all correlation factors in order to establish causality.

In my filed of work (science) people retire late and live long. Or some may argue that this is a moot point since we never actually work… which would be an illustration of the point I tried to make in the first paragraph above :)

When the Soviets crashed, the retired were hit first and the hardest. The majority of those w/out carrying kids near them simply dies from starvation. This was the first thing I thought about after reading the news about OAS cuts.

This is exactly why politicians and inheritance case civil servants should not be making retirement decisions for the rest of us…….they simply don’t give a shit about ‘the few dollars’ that get cut away or added, as the case may be, to the poor and disenfranchised. The rich civil servant can’t relate to ‘a few hundred bucks’. Civil servants are so fat they can’t ever imagine ever missing a meal…It’s like Marie Antionette when asked why the the peasents were unhappy having no bread….she famously quoted “Let them eat cake’….as if there was any…..Marie lived in an indexed pension world where shortfalls in the daily budget were impossible to imagine. This is exactly the same with civil servants making decisions……they are the Marie Antoinettes of Canadian society…..so fat and arrogant that they’re clueless and have lost all thouch with reality.

I know that Canadians are sheep….they’been brainwashed to be so……but someday you can see something…a catalyst of some kind…..sparking the anger…..we saw the pent up frustration of the young during the hockey riots in Wankouver. I imagine a grey wave decending on the Liberal Parety offices in a kind of Kystalknacht in revenge attacks against a party that set up the fiasco od debt that we are all having to suffer through.

#174 CATO: “The baby boomers are doing themselves no favors playing this political gamesmanship. The boomers are starting a generational war they cannot win. This is the reality for those of us who come after the boomer wave. ”

********************************

The ‘baby boomers’ aren’t saying much. Seems to me it’s the younger generations kicking up the fuss. The ‘baby boomers’ aren’t to blame for being ‘baby boomers’.

the stench of this government overwhelmed me at its swearing in on February 6, 2006. I can fathom falling for Harper’s changing-government-and-politics line. The need was obvious, and I did it myself and voted for them. What I cannot wrap my head around is that they were re-elected two more times.

The incompetence of the Harper Government is not as terrifying as the incompetence of the electorate. While the government is perfectly capable of looking after its own interests, we have shown that we are not!

if you walk into a dollar store and buy something for one dollar, you pay
1.13 including hst. so now what? 1.15?= tax inflation

in ontario fast food under 4 dollars is pst only, so some places may sell a sandwich for 3.99 which would be 3.99 plus 7%, if they round it up they have to charge 13% instead of 7%, again tax inflation

How about a musical interlude?
finally someone put “Million Pound Semi-Detached” on youtube:

#104 No, I’m the REAL Smoking Man on 03.31.12 at 2:26 am
………………………………………………
That was good, I officially sanction you to take over while I’m looking for property in Vegas.

No, I’m the REAL Smoking Said:
Sure the only people that would benefit from such a service is either paranoid people, organized criminals and pedophiles,
…………………………………………………………………………

So True But:

There is another version

Well fortune 500 companies really like the fort Knox version, (not the free be) they are a bit worried of getting there emails hacked. (Climate Gate ring a bell) 1200 a pop x 100 users upper management on average. Do the math be-otch.

Some people just can not fathom how a complete moron and idiot, like me can do so well.

Simple: Im not an idiot

The real me is an obedient rule following tax farm slave, by night I Put the cape on and Transform into THE GREAT SMOKING MAN.

Smoking Man is a character I invented for a book, I started blogging to try and get some inspiration and for material had writers block.

The Problem is Booze and a few other things, I’m am turning into him. Screw the book blogging is more fun.

our public employees have way to great a sense of entitlement at the tax payers expense… how about we gut their pensions and pay …
…and see how they like it… after all it was their lies , stupidity, ponzi, and fraud that made gutting the public tax money for the plans possible in the first place…

one really pissed taxpayer.. a real one!

…not a public employee who just pays their tax’s with the increased tax’s he took/extorted from me… that’s called recycling in my book, no real productive buisiness was achieved. just give me lower tax’s and fire the bums that need to be gone… like in the real world.

63% public welfare job employment is just to top heavy…
30% raises in some places… like vancouver’s public elite…. then attach a indexed pension increase to that…
Silver

Herbie @ # 222,
Yeah, imagine the nerve of me, suggesting personal resposibility and self-reliance.
How utterly terrifying to the average Canadian! The thought of not having nanny government there to think for you…

};-) aka DA on 03.31.12 at 3:16 pm
For the first time since 1930 the average square footage of a new home has abated.

Here, for the Central Okanagan, are the average home sizes for those homes sold in the past year according to the decade in which they were build.

…………………………………………………………………………..

Oh dear now we have, but, but we have bigger houses now so that is why prices are high. C’mon use some common sense didn’t US house size also increase?, not to mention the country where houses are the biggest in the world, Australia.

Sorry but BIG houses hasn’t stopped the slide in the US or in Australia and it won’t stop prices sliding in Canada.

You really must try to come up with some original excuses or be more like BPOE, who has given up with logic and just now attempts to baffle us with bulls&^%t.

OAS payments should be paid with contributions on everyone’s income tax return say minimum $720 per year with increases to cover such pension costs. It should not be a free program paid for by those paying income taxes. Welfare, GIS, WSIB, WCB, G.S.T., H.S.T. credits, CTB and any other government social benefits should all be taxable and not tax-free. Every person should pay a minimum annual income tax of $500 regardless of income.Everyone lives and uses Canada’s services and some contribution should be made.

Sample size is not an issue here. For the study to be meaningful they have to compare people who are of similar health (at the same age), type of work (to eliminate hidden/potential health problems), wealth (this has bearing on lifestyle and healthcare), and so on.

Knowing the type of people who carry out such studies – the social “scientists,” i.e. guys smart enough to get an education but not talented enough for science – my first assumption is always that the study is likely to be faulty.

What is fascinating about this pathetic blog, is all the folks on here who try and appear to be concerned about their fellow man.
The well organized and intricate key strokes of rational and logic while pushing an agenda driven to relive the writers short comings.

You’re not fooling me.

You are all are trying to push an agenda that benefits your beliefs or personal circumstances.

99% have a wall that grounds your imagination, your potential.
Even when you are just a fake name, a ghost. Why do you care what happens to others. Truth is you don’t. You try to justify your bad bets, and influence others into the direction that benefits your bet. It’s so obvious to me.

Very pleased to see awareness of the vile nature of future promises coming clear to some. ALL of these collective promises of ‘something for nothing’ are mathematically impossible without vast amounts of money being created from thin air. (do you really think we contributed enough to sit and do nothing for 15-25 years just being an ‘average citizen?)

The best pensions are given to those who have administered the run up of debt, or benefited from the grotesque overspending for many years? Seriously? – Thoroughly disgusting behaviour cleverly crafted by sociopathic ‘leaders’ for four decades now.

Does anyone really believe that today’s basement dwelling, unemployed, undisciplined, tattooed and pierced youth with very little hope of a stable future are going to tolerate all the geriatric piggies who have entirely neglected their legacy and continue to gleefully ring up vast debts on the tabs of their children?

Quick solution – NO MORE DEFICITS – AT ALL or you are fired. Period.

Second step – all government employees pay NO TAX. They are NOT tax payers, they are revenue consumers. When the real tax receipts go down, their pay must go down automatically.

Boomers have destroyed the goodwill created by a generation which observed restraint, valued loyalty, deplored corruption and offered their lives to defeat the psychopaths of the time pursuing global domination.

Stop voting for your own selfish little pots of gold and start giving a damn about the country you are going to leave your children. Pay attention and stop this crap or suffer the pain you will richly deserve AND passing the burdens of your overconsumption to the future.

At last! SM, you have coaxed me out of retirement to do something useful with the rest of my pathetic life! I have been resurrected frpm the wastelands of despair!

First few paras. are 4 U!
*
How far we have evolved — THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!

“Man is the missing link between apes and human beings.” — Konrad Lorenz, Nobel Laureate (wrh.com).
*World’s Religions Their breakdown, who is where, etc. Think we’ve got bubbles? Obomaba and Iran “When was the last time the United States government accurately predicted the duration of one of their wars of conquest? Never. Which means the US will reach the end of the extra reserves with more war left to fight, creating global oil shortages and wrecking what remains of the western economy.” wrh.com; Layoffs Best Buy and Home Depot; 11:22 clip Ron Paul and Andrew Napolitano — End the Fed; 4:38 clip Hey! This is where ObombaCare’s missing trillions have gone! Outrage Fat cats squandering money as if there’s no tomorrow; Gold and Violence;Taxes All govts. are nickling and diming us to death, even hospitals; Mortgage 4Closures and the rate of; Papering over the obvious.

#212stinky_ron on 03.31.12 at 7:38 pm
When are public service workers going to get a cut in their pensions? People in the private sector working for small business are going to have to work till they are dead while public sector union workers will be living the good life with their guaranteed pensions.

Going underground is an option I have in my line of work and I think I will be going that way soon. Makes me sick that I work my butt off so that government workers can live the good life.
————————————————————

Then be sure to stay off the roads, and turn in your drivers license, and your health card. Don’t take the gov’t subsidized city buses either (your fare doesn’t cover all the cost). Also, please don’t rely on police nor the courts to settle your disputes for you. That means you settle your own scores…but remember, others who think they’ve been screwed by you get to settle their scores with you on the same ‘personal’ level. Stay off the sidewalks too while you’re at it. And since you’re going ‘underground’ and , I assume, you won’t be paying your water bill, make sure you take yourself off of any municipal water/sewage service you might be on – pay for your own sewage and water testing. You can stop flying too as government, while not providing the flight, provides a heck of a lot in the infrastructure work and background operations. Are you in some sort of a skilled trade? Well then, get ready for a lot of competition, because then any Joe with a wrench will be able to compete with you at rock-bottom prices, since there’ll be no gov’t body to regulate skilled trades. Pay full tuition at private schools for any kids you might have as well. Please also stop reading all safety labels and warnings on all food and pharmaceuticals you might be taking and take them all blind – they’re the result of government regulations too. Write a letter to every single company/person you do business with or know on any level at all and let them know in no uncertain terms that you choose not to be protected by any of the government laws and regulations that protect you now because you’ll take care of everything yourself. Hire unregulated and informally educated teachers, doctors, and lawyers for you and your entire family because their educations are no longer funded by your tax dollars. In fact, make damn sure noone you have dealings with has any formal education at all that has ever been funded by gov’t – not even a kindergarted graduation certificate. ……….

But, as a comic in all seriousness (nod to Bobby Bittman), I really know what you mean about those government workers as well. You and me Stinky_Ron, we know. We know who inhabits all of the best homes and mansions in the best neighbourhoods across our country – its those uber-rich civil servants of course. We both know that its a carefully crafted media/union lefty conspiracy that tries to convince us that those big houses in Rosedale, North Van, and Lakeshore Dr. in Oakville are anything but the secret residences of union scum. Who else could possibly afford to live in such palaces, while we work our butts off to pay for their high-falootin’ lives? They all look so plain and ordinary when they serve you at the passport office or the drivers license office, but we know its all just a front to fool us into thinking they’re hard-working ordinary tax-paying folk like us. WE, you and me Stinky, we know they all take off early and party with all the coke and prostitutes our hard earned tax dollars can buy for them. We know its the gov’t workers who drive all the BMWs, ferraris, and have a good laugh at us as their taxpayer-paid union scum commie-nazi yachts wiz by us and our kids on the plain old taxpayer workin’-man’s Toronto Island Ferry.

I said it before, and again. I will work until I die. I am 28 and have been well aware of this fact since about 14.

Old age pension is a pyramid scheme. Each generation is supposed to have 3-4 children per couple to make the system work. The greatest gen did this and called their kids the boomers. the boomers did not, could not, do this and gen x/y are having even less kids.

Don’t forget this system was created in Garth’s father and grand fathers time. in this time one average man could easily support a non working wife, 4 kids, and save 10-11% of his income.

times have changed. now it takes both parents to work, to support 1.5 children, save no money, and have life long debts that our grand parents never had.

Hard times are coming and history teaches that in hard times, there will be violence.

#234 Westernman on 03.31.12 at 9:53 pm
Herbie @ # 222,
Yeah, imagine the nerve of me, suggesting personal resposibility and self-reliance.
How utterly terrifying to the average Canadian
…………………………………………………………………….
Tripe. Total tripe. You have not been self reliant since the day you were born and have been dependent throughout your life and will need somebody to tidy up your mortal remains once you have departed. The rugged individual is a myth. How is government backed mortgages anything near independent? And that is REFORM conservatives that brought us this bubble, Not socialist liberals. If you think for one second that you alone can stand up against Japan, let alone China then your view of the world is at best myopic if not childish. TEAM WORK. This screwing each other over thing has gotten old very fast in the face of globalization. The entire country is at each others throats while work has left to other parts of the world. An over-class lording over an underclass is only one possible scenario. In closing lazy people expecting to be taken care of by others come from every social class. Having Money does not mean you are doing anything of use to the country.

#202 daystar on 03.31.12 at 5:27 pm
I definitely consider myself middle aged at age 30.
……………………………………………………………………….
That is so cute. Middle aged at 30. I had only just begun to royally screw things up at thirty. All the other screw ups were shear minor league compared to the three or four massive screw ups in my 30s. I know I sound condescending and risk being knocked on my ass by means of a heart attack brought on by the flying fickle finger of fate because I wrote this but I just traumatically had my 50th birthday and with 3 kids under the age of 8 I simply have no permission to allow myself to drift into late middle age (now I have given up on sentences let alone paragraphs). In fact I will remain middle aged right up until my last heart beat but not by choice.

Just a little note about the baby boomers (I am the trailing edge). They SOLD OUT big time. Bigger than their parents by far. You want to diss a baby boomer just call them sell outs but they may not remember the passion by which they labelled THE MAN with the term.

Free love, pot, easy employment. This is the ecosystem of the boomer (and pot was maybe 20 to 60 bucks an once, that’s 28 grams if you did not have a connection). everything was so easy that there was no need to put up a fight for anything, that is why the elites had such an easy time of sending our jobs abroad. They would not dare try pulling that with the greatest generation that just came back from World War 2. Yes we got to party our asses off under the watchful eyes of our parents that were ready willing and able to knock people on their asses if they got to stupid about things(politically and physically). Do not listen to the opportunists that call us sheep. They never faced anything like the challenges the greatest generation faced. Many people think the fight is over but it never ends. The masses are slow to get off the mat because they are having a hard time believing what is happening. The fight has not even started yet in that the great unwashed has not fully accepted what has happened and what is happening. It was not rugged individualism that won the war but rugged individuals working together for the benefit of all.

If you expect not to have a social contract then you likely will not. We can not answer this nonsense alone. We must mobilize. YAK, YAK, YAK, is all well and good but a distant cousin to DO, DO, DO. We need to write a few new laws and change everything. Vote for the politician that promises and delivers what you really need, lots of great doctors, first rate fast medical care, education, retirement, defense. technology and industry. Do not concern yourselves too much with these ridiculous debt levels because no nation on earth will ever be able to repay their debts (perhaps one or two can). There is much to be done to prepare for great troubles looming a few decades from now. We can become largely self sufficient relatively quickly. To start with Canadian natural resources are just that, Canadian.

“my first assumption is always that the study is likely to be faulty.”

I believe the stringent study parameters you layout
cannot realistically be expected, since the information gleaned from this study does not support, the work till
you die, collect no pension, ideology of corporations / governments.

Retire at age ____, collect pension for ____months,
then pass at age____, book ending the data. No need
for a scientist here. You work as long as you like, but
these results make sense to me.

The bums definitely include firefighters and police officers. The most over-paid and under-educated group out there. Waaaay overpaid. Prime example of the power of unions, and guys who would be hard pressed to make 1/3 the pay they make when pay/overtime/benefits/pension are factored in.

Most cops spend their time writing tickets. Most firefighters spend their time planning the group meal or working out.

Nurses and teachers are paid about right. Soldiers-no problem with their pay.

Government employees? Underworked and waaay overpaid.

And if an MP or MLA gets a pension before they turn 60, it’s outrageous.

People like Flarukity are the reason I want to see the federal level of government gone, what a load of crap. Being a politician should not be a viable career option, screw them and their golden pensions. As for OAS

“The very existence of these geezer benefits has lulled way too many people into doing diddly about their financial futures. ”

right on the money Garth, people are actually so stupid in this country they think OAS will provide for them, what idiots. I say get rid of it, hell I’m 40 and I say get rid of it, even if I never see a dime of what I’ve already paid in, get rid of it. Same with EI, and please don’t call this crap “the social contract.” When in da fukin hell did I sign “the social contract?” No thanks.

As for the boomers, they can go to hell. If you’re a boomer you better hope you die off quickly because once us young ones get the majority voting block we’re gonna bend you over, or more like pull your fricken medicare from you because you’re costing the rest of productive society too bloody much. And don’t give me the BS about you being the hardworking generation, unless you’re over 80 years old, STFU! Baby boomers have had it easy, most things all they had to do was apply for a job, accept it, and pay off a nice cheap house and live the good life, frankly, if they have screwed it up then to hell with them. After all don’t you turds keep telling us to work hard and save? Put our nose to the grindstone? Good things come to those who wait? Too bad none of you idiots listened to your own advice.

251 – Oh really, how much have prices gone up? Surrey real estate is dead right now and prices have been flat for a long time. I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re either a troll or a realtard. Not to mention a racist.

Perhaps for some, but the reality is that our beloved governments, corporations and central banks are encouraging us to borrow and consume as much as is humanly possible in order to continue to allow the top 1% to skim profits off the bottom 99%. They are confidence-spinners & fiscal necromancers selling us a bill of goods.

Nobody, but NOBODY is pointing a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to borrow.

#237 Kaganovich on 03.31.12 at 10:05 pm
“Just like the GST and other indirect forms of taxes, the end of the penny is jut one more nail in the coffin for the average income earning Canadian.”
______________
Only if you pay cash for small items.

Can anyone tell me why so many Chinese are buying up houses in South Surrey, White Rock? The price really gone up since 2010. What is going on?

Sue, these are the one’s running from the RE downturn in China only to be hit by the car twice when CAN RE dumps. These are not savy asian investors, they suffer from the same delirium any of the sheeple do!

I tend to agree with you.
Another problem is that the wealthiest taxpayers, the boomers, are paying more than their fair share of taxes, being taxed at a higher rate than the lower paid generations.
Another problem is corporate taxes.
There should not be such a thing as we, the consumers, are the ones paying for it. This is what a value added tax, the GST, is all about.
Talk about double taxation.
All the brouhaha on this blog about OAS and the boomers is ridiculous. OAS is a non-event.

Cutting boomer social benefits will ease Canada’s economic problems. How many of you believe this spin?

If you’re one of the true believers,then please fit the following into your theory and come back and tell us how you did it.

“Canada’s federal debt grew steadily between 5% and 10% per year until 1975. For the next 12 years it grew on average over 20% per year. It surpassed $100 billion in 1981, $200 billion in 1985, $300 billion in 1988, $400 billion in 1992, and $500 billion in 1994. It peaked at $563 billion in 1997.”

Let me see if I have this right? The 70’s,80’s,90’s and beyond were peak boomer earning’s years. There was no Great Canadian aging crisis yet. The boomers weren’t drawing benefits. In fact the opposite was true -the govt was raking in boomer taxes hand over fist.

Are you still with me? Because next comes the salient point. Despite a young, healthy, and productive population and despite boomer tax $$$ up the wazoo, not only did the govts not balance the budget…. THEY RAN UP ENORMOUS DEBT !

Most of the other western govts followed the same model.

But I am pleased with what they spent some of our money on. Love the new dams, the maglev trains, the upgrades to our aging sewer systems and electrical grid. And they finally got around to replacing the 1940’s Soviet style flooring in Kelowna’s one and only hospital. Oh, wait a minute……

Our economic woes began long, long, before the boomers qualified for their paltry benefits. And they will continue long after the boomers have passed. Put that in your pipes and smoke it, comrades.

Your post shows how much the government is involved in everyone’s lives. There’s much more though. No wonder the country has such a large debt. People cannot take care of themselves.
Then, by your description, I wish I had become a civil servant. Missed my vocation.

#241 Smoking Man – yes, and too bad that a few years back he discovered that his estimated 5 million dollar retirement nest egg had been reduced to $150,000. This was back in 2005. Not sure how he’s made out since. Moral of the story. Be careful who you trust with you money I guess.

Nice attitude about the boomers.
Nice to talk about something that you know nothing about.
So, your parents are idiots and stupid. I’ll bet you wouldn’t say that to their faces.
I think you’re a yellow chicken.
Roll up your sleeves, get to work and do something of yourself. Moron.

To all you people who say the GST should be raised I will say they don’t have a taxing problem – they have a SPENDING problem. And so much is waste. Ever watch CBC marketplace where almost every week there is a government department that is found not be doing it’s job?

#235Aussie Roy on 03.31.12 at 9:53 pm
};-) aka DA on 03.31.12 at 3:16 pm
For the first time since 1930 the average square footage of a new home has abated.

Here, for the Central Okanagan, are the average home sizes for those homes sold in the past year according to the decade in which they were building.

…………………………………………………………………………..

Oh dear now we have, but, but we have bigger houses now so that is why prices are high. C’mon use some common sense didn’t US house size also increase?, not to mention the country where houses are the biggest in the world, Australia.

Sorry but BIG houses hasn’t stopped the slide in the US or in Australia and it won’t stop prices sliding in Canada.

You really must try to come up with some original excuses or be more like BPOE, who has given up with logic and just now attempts to baffle us with bulls&^%t.

I was not suggesting that the phenomena of the increasing size of houses being built would maintain prices as such. My intended implication was really quite contrary to that.

The real postulate behind my comment was that a bigger house and the related costs of material and labour inputs is not nearly so sound an investment as the land upon which the structure was built – and even then an unwise purchase of a poor location would negate very quickly the value of those improvements. This is the very reason, as Garth once said, “ice cream melts from the outside in”. This proposition was, I think, reiterated in the close of my post…

”It is not the improvements upon the land it is the land. How many crops you can grow on it, how many sheep you can graze on it, how many customers can easily and readily find your business upon it, how convenient it is to your work and your children’s schools.

Land – limited supply in the face of an ever growing demand. You figure it out. – D.A.

The first house I ever built was in 1982. The land cost $25,000 and the building $50,000. Today that home has a likely market value of $500,000 of which the lot easily represent $300,000 of. So the land has increased in value by a factor of 12 while the improvements by only a factor of 4. If you factor in inflation, as is so often propose ought to be done, it becomes quite clear that the “house” is a poor investment compared to the land underneath it.

Additionally, during heady economic times many suppliers of the inputs required to build a house try to “make hay while the sun is shining” so to speak. None so quick to increase their price it seems as framers. This results in as much or more a “cost push” rise in prices than the “demand pull” warrants. It is that very characteristic of the housing market which, in great part, is why the demand for the new and resale market see-saws back and forth as it does. Smaller trades push their price to the brink that it sends prospective home buyers back to the resale markets as the price of new is prohibative. As too many head back to the limited supply of resale creating an excess demand builders then commence building to meet the demand, framers drop their prices to get the work and the whole cycle starts over again.

The other reason for that see-saw between the demand for new and resale is that during heady economic times builders are busy building to the demand on what tends to be the only available land to do so upon – in outlying areas. This is why “ice cream melts from the outside in” as Garth said – because those newly constructed homes tend to be in less desirable outlying locations.

Today we are seeing a return to “location, location, location” as home buyers come to realize you can change the house and add the “granite, stainless and hardwood” but you can’t change the location.

I trust if you think about what I have said Aussie Boy, you will see that we really are quite in concurrence but that I have offered some insight which will explain where in the market and why one might anticipate the greatest degree of price capitulation to take place when the economic tide changes. If not let me give you one example to research…

Check out the price of granite countertops pre-construction boom and post. I think you will find that the cost of that input, like many others, through the economies of scale due to its becoming a more commonplace material of choice has dropped significantly. Consequently it is the falling cost of such inputs to the construction of a home which has had much influence in falling house costs. And now those who built at the peak of the bubble are finding they paid a lot more to have their house built in what was then a knee jerk last resort location when no better was available. Hence – “Ice cream melts from the outside in” and there is greater price capitulation in those outlying areas while in many “choice” locations prices are, in fact, still increasing.

Of course the recent phenomena of “loose credit” had much to do with the ramp up in the markets as well and now the “tightening credit” markets are exerting pressures on it. But don’t overlook the interplay at the “foundation” of the market – pun intended.

#231, right on….kick the bums out…..we can easily contract out all the civil service jobs and get better productivity for less pay . It’s a fact that teachers are better trained in India…so why are we paying union salaries here. We have trained and equipped the fire departments of Mexico, Guatemala, Chili and Haiti…these guys will work for less on the exactly the same equipment…same standard of service for 1/4 of the cost. No one can tell me that we can’t find drunken stumble bums to fill the RCMP ranks for less than the force is paying right now. City workers cutting grass for $60 dollars an hour…please. What we have is a union lobby sucking the life out of the Canadian economy and politicians and entrnched bureaucrats whose livelihoods depend on supporting the status quo. Unless you people are happy with the prospect of paying 100% income tax to support an elite whose pensions will never end….. you have to wake up….

criminal investigation into price manipulation of oil would be the trigger.

…where the demand appears to be 33 times the amount of oil in the world.

If you actually look at supply-demand figures in the real market, the United States is now a net exporter of oil rather than importer of oil. And when the president keeps saying we have enough supply and we’re getting enough supply, he’s right. It is not a supply-demand problem. But he has said—and, unfortunately, our Justice Department hasn’t followed up on it—that we have to pursue this as a criminal matter and drive these speculators from the market.

If I actually ever said middle age started at 30, you would’ve had a point but… I never said that.

#239 Smoking Man on 03.31.12 at 10:47 pm

99%? According to? Doesn’t that generalization exaggerate your own point just a tad? When you are done selling us on the generalization of how 99% act on self interests alone just because we all have to look out for ourselves at some point to begin with (and are in some ways conditioned by it), please don’t discount the numbers of those who also look out for others. Its as obvious as a mothers love and self sacrifice for her child.

Perhaps your book could use a hero. Y’know, someone who sticks their neck out for others whether its the reluctant hero who realizes that solely looking out for one’s self is a lonely unhappy existence and wises up and takes on some responsibility (something as simple as raising kids perhaps) to the unsung hero who donates their time at a charity or non profit organization. We expect hero’s to be knights in shining armours, but most aren’t and all of them have weaknesses but its the desire to watch the backs of others that sets them apart and its far more than 1%, I assure you. You could be one through the mere power of words but you have to think outside the box, stretch your own imagination. Here, let me help.

Why is the earth so special to our neighbors? Soul travel. Some of the souls of their ancestors end up here. (most of us have always known you can never get it all in one life. So very true but unlike some believe, who ever said it must all happen here? The universe is infinitely huge where anything is possible)

You write fiction true? The best way to sell fiction is even in our wildest imaginations, to make it believable and parellel in some form to our own existence even if the backdrop is literally out of this world. (Avatar comes to mind) Believability is the hook, that which all best sellers are made.

“the social contract?” that’s part of what makes civilization function at the level it does. If you don’t want any type of social safety nets, if you really want to live in a society with minimal Government and a real dog eat dog social attitude may I suggest you move to the Libertarian paradise of Somalia.

Watch this 24 min BBC Hardtalk video, which is some very hard talk indeed, and see if you disagree. His solution of a debt Jubilee/printing/debt repayment is still years away from any practical arrival, if ever, as it would be opposed by all Banksters, but his description of how and why we got to this sorry place are 100% correct, IMHO, never the less. On a basic level he is entirely right.

The OAS cut was cheap and petty when I see the millions of federal dollars pissed away by the feds in Ottawa. The federal money handed over to Ontario and Hamilton is also frittered away on unproductive assets and useless programs.

Citizens pay huge taxes at all levels for the ruling elite and civil service to earn above average salaries and to live comfortably after 30 years of minimal effort in the work force.

Yeah, I read “Animal Farm” in high school so I know the playbook that our governments and civil service unions use.

Oh, and Bob Rae says, “Thanks for giving me a great issue to flog in the next fed. election.” Nothing like a little pension hysteria in the electorate to turf out the existing Conservatives.

Rae would no doubt save those thousands of federal civil service jobs too! We can expect that the federal civil service will be backing him 100%.

Regarding the age changes for OAS. The local newspaper here, unable to rustle up any frightened senior citizens, got a 44 year old to bleat scared about how he desperately counted on those two years of OAS and how he didn’t know what he would do to survive. That he was divorced and supporting a disabled daughter was the ploy to play on my sympathies.

He’s got 21 years to come up with $12,000 extra. Hmmm, 12000/21=572. 572/12=50 a month, or if weekly would be more managable, 572/52=11 a week. He only has to come up with an extra 11 bucks a week, and has the nerve to bleat scared into the newspaper?

I don’t feel any sympathy for the Boomer Generation, they can all spin for all I care. But I have even less sympathy for my generation when they refuse to take any action to help themselves and/or plan for the future.

For myself, for every year of OAS I think I’ll need, I’ll toss six bucks a week into a coffee can now, and be glad I did so 21 years in the future.

Blacksheep, I always like those types of stats however I would think someone who retires at 50 is obviously well off and at that point the study just illustrates the relationship of personal wealth to life span.
I also like social contract discussions, I think if j.j. Rousseau were alive today he would write “everywhere man is running and he is everywhere on treadmills”

Blase did you read what your wrote?? So, firefighters and police officers are definitely bums?
I guess you have never been at a car accident or any of the other thousands of emergencies police and firefighters respond to everyday. When everyone is running away from the scene … police and firefighters are running to it to save your life.
You should thank them for all the risks they take cutting you out of that wreck or dragging you from that burning building.

I have some good news for you. You won’t have to pay their pensions for long. Firefighters on average don’t live very long after they retire and most retire young . Many are victims of the toxic and carcinogenic smoke they inhale during their careers.
Uneducated? You’re kidding right? Firefighters and police officers are constantly upgrading their knowledge and skills.

Wanna guess how many police officers and firefighters have college or university degrees?

Good day all. It seams divide and rule is alive and well. TPTB must be just tickled. I am a boomer with 3 yound adults in our familly. I do not support the outrageous house prices that we currently have nor do I support their and others having to wait 2 years longer to recieve the OAS benefit. We need to work together for the betterment of all. There is no benefit to finger pointing or name calling. We are told we are in a global economy with a global work force looming. No benefits paid to workers in India you say? We’ll just have to do the same no? We must be on high alert together. Pissing on one another does nothin’ for no one. If anyone thinks they are hard done by, a review of some history might be helpful. If something is repeated often enough people start to beleive it is so. Some Goebbles fellow used it very well. Hitler had a plan for old people that were no longer able to contribute. Of course this solution did not include himself the Krupp familly and the loyalists. If you see injustice speak out against it. Bring people together. Protect those that can’t protect themselves. Help the old lady accross the street. If you are able give your young people $ or anything do it now when they need it most. Respect others and expect the same in return. Always be on guard to protect what has taken many generations and too much blood. Look to improve things rather than criticize. Save for yourself and others that will come later. Boomers when you retire donate your time and money to the many that are in need including our young people for they are the future. This is the way. Thanks all hope this did not sound corny or simplistic. Best wishes to all.

Jody @ # 260,
My, My! Aren’t you the bitter child…
Take this from ol’ Boomer Westernman… I’m enjoying the hell out your money and don’t plan on stopping burning it up for many, many years…
And as far as you bending me over and doing anything, I say don’t let anything but fear and good judgement stop you sonny – I’ll leave the door open for you… I don’t want it torn off it’s hinges when you exit ( if you know what I mean )…

At least I’m not the only one scratching my head as to why the F’s budget didn’t address any progress on covered bonds, instead, the government stated it is “moving forward” without providing any details.

“I expected to see more detail,” said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets. “Obviously it’s still a work in progress. It doesn’t have to be in the budget. It’s a bit of a surprise because I was looking for a whole addendum on it.”

This could work—only one problem—investment pools would have to meet a certain criteria to qualify as a safe investment for public sector funds, meaning, shares/units issued would have to be granted senior credit status leaving all current shareholders as subordinates. This is risky business.

It goes to show how desperate our government is and how far they are willing to go.

don’t be so hard on jody . She’s only suffering from the effects of the neocon coolaid (divide and screw everyone) . If she ever has kids ,grandkids and parents that all need help all at the same time. she’ll know how far one can bend over . Ah to be forty again and know it all . Us boomers . The first generation that had true birth control and abortion .And we gave life to the likes of jody . We should all get the order of canada . Or a dunce cap . You be the judge jody . Nice ring to that Judge Jody.

Today I went to Arista phase III, I could not park close to the selling office. ….too many people. I think Canada broke all kind of economics logic. I am really start thinking it wont be any drop in prices, I have been overpriced for been a chicken 2 years ago!

Well personally, I am happy to be over the radar for any OAS age increase, selfish, not so much. I worked most of my life, except for now (still a landlord). Self-employed, hired people. No UI or MAT leave for me. Totally independent. I paid into a system. Which seems like a contract to me. Now if some rich entitled MP scumbag wishes to rescind this contract. I will be up in arms.

I also do not know how they can arbitrarily decide a birth date for people to adhere to the new regulations. I say, off with his head.

If it isn’t enough that young people have shitty jobs and job prospects. Absolutely no security, the future seems marginal at best. Even after you have educated your sorry ass, for scraps at the table. You are expected to work longer. The McDonalds fries and pop generation, will kill these suckers off, long before 65. Poor people eat 1.39 cent hamburgers. Probably have never seen an apple or veg. You would require mastricating abilities. Never mind the crack and whatever.

Also the government in charge, relishes sending young people to prison for somewhat minor infractions. Hence ruining their chance for even a sub par level of existence.

Visited a young man incarcerated in Penetang. No angel, but GOD not evil. A small young man in a bad system. What he did, would have only generated a don’t do this again in the 70’s. What has happened here.

I am in a pissed off mood. Garth, you must find someone to run as an independent, start a fever. You have a few cheerleaders here.

On a lighter note, beach girl is pissed off, doesn’t happen too much. But can I watch cable TV shows free on the internet. I like 2 broke girls and Come Dine With Me.

Easter is coming. Going to invite some really interesting people. Will keep you posted.

How do I watch TV shows for free on the internet. Don’t want all my young friends to know how stupid I really am.

Also, with the crime rate dropping and less reproductive birth rates, these jails are going to be the seniors homes for the disenfranchised in the future. Only thing is you ain’t getting out. Visitors unlikely. Dickens.

The Ontario Liberals should have never gotten re-elected. They have mismanaged Ontario finances miserably. Keep in mind the Liberals gotten a win fall as result of additional revenue from HST and it did nothing to eliminate the deficit

Firemen and Police Officers also put their life at risk to protect people every time they punch in for shift, give your head a shake. My uncle is a RCMP officer who was almost killed in the line of duty, to sit there and tell him he’s not worth what he is paid is disrespectful and stupid. I doubt you would say that to his face.

Bankers, Stock Brokers, Real Estate Agents, Politicians, Marketing Execs, Mortgage Brokers, the whole damn financial sector is overpaid and have an overstated value to society in general. If this whole sector disappeared overnight society would be better off. If Police or Firefighters disappear, people die.

I don’t have to, my brother was a paramedic/firefighter. Most of the guy’s in his hall had high school educations and made close to 6 figures.

Why do you think small towns, including in Canada, have volunteer firefighters?

Give them danger pay, give them great medical, give them life insurance. But don’t pay them outrageous salaries compared to most Canadians for doing a job that doesn’t warrant the pay.

Yes, they are heroes, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to get paid better than most.

Police? Give me a break. We’d be better off with half the cops we have now. Get rid of the ridiculous drug laws and take away their ticketing powers for things like speeding cameras, and their budgets would be sunk.

The average cop should make half what they do now.

P.S. Paramedics in Canada are amongst the highest trained in the world. They deserve their pay much more than a fireman.

After taking fire fighter training in the Naval Reserves, I can say with alacrity, that my respect for smoke eaters is immense. (*Fire at Sea – every Captain’s biggest fear – with good reason).

Dumping on people that save lives, and are well paid for their sacrifice is in my opinion – off base.

As for the Police.

I have had the occasion to deal with the RCMP and Vancouver City Cops on numerous occasions. (*Media relations – and not as a perp). You couldn’t pay me enough to do their job.

Here in Dumbcouver, the City Cops lay their health and life on the line every time they take a call.

Last night – there was a humungous party of drunks driving our part of the West End nuts. I call non-emergency and gave details. Two Black and Whites showed up – and I was waiting for them. I pointed out the spot.

Ten minutes later, a parade of bums were trooped out, by these crack young Cops. The 3 men and women of the force were polite and when I said “Thanks” – they were all friendly and thanked me for MY help.

Without these two groups – where would we be?

Stress? Toxic smoke – kill many firefighters before their time, and every time a Cop takes a call – they have no idea what they face.

So – call me reactionary – but I appreciate both groups and will happily pay them well.

Now, if we could just get the morons in Victoria to pay EMT’s a good wage, I would be happy.

The EMT’s that saved my life TWICE, by restarting my heart, are my personal heroes.

Now back to Real Estate. Thanks for letting me dump in my opinion on this – I know it is off topic, but I feel it was warranted.

In addition, wrinkly old people will be encouraged to defer taking this money, starting next year. The feds will bribe them 7.2% for each year they delay, for up to five years. So, if they wait until age 70, they’ll get a third more cash, which will last until they croak.
——-
And since our governments run the healthcare system it makes it in their best interest to see that we all die before the age of 70. It’s a conflict of interest that professional engineers must disclose in all their dealings and with the severity level as high as this conflict is, would legally be wise to abstain from one or the other activities on ethical grounds alone.

Welcome to Canada, drop dead soon.

Our healthcare systems doesn’t need any customers since they already have your money.

A homeowner in Glanbrook just on the southern boundary of Hamilton, and East of Upper James, has posted a small but noticeable “www.greaterfool.ca” sign on his front lawn facing prospective buyers in a new housing development of $5-650,000 homes. Wife and I loved it.

They homes are in a great location. It’s really all about location, right? What could be better than being right under eastern glide path for the John C. Munro (who dat?) International Airport, aka as Mount Hope or No Hope Airport by the locals.

Firefighters in Hamilton lost my respect when they contractually refused to cut grass or shovel snow around fire stations. The city pays other city workers to cut the grass and shovel snow while firefighters are allowed to sleep on 24 hour shifts. That would be 7 shifts a month. We all get to sleep at work? Lots of the firefighters made the $100,000 sunshine list with overtime.

And what do you do? Do you put your life on the line when you go to work every morning? These people enter structures that ARE ON FIRE. Police, Fire, Ambulance should be the highest paying jobs in the land considering everything that comes with the territory. PTSD anyone?

Damn straight Garth. We’re gonna make em pay. Sell out your kids and eventually they are gonna bite back. (Especially now that many of us are 30 and over, and many boomers are on the cusp of really old.)

Blase . Why do you think small towns, including in Canada, have volunteer firefighters? Because they can’t afford to have a full time fire department. Get real!! Some small towns couldn’t afford their own fire department if they paid the firefighters minimum wage. Some also can’t afford full time professional water treatment staff either. Walkerton comes to mind.
Blase, You just sound like someone who is simply jealous because firefighters and police offices gets paid more than you. I know many in of my university graduating class who went on to careers in local law enforcement, Border Services and the RCMP. I also have family members who have served with both large urban fire departments and as firefighters with the Ontario Department of Natural Resources.
One will be returning to duty soon after a year of treatment for a rare form of cancer. A recent Quebec study (IRSST, 2007) links the specific risks of some cancers and the firefighting profession. This study indicates that there is a disproportional incidence of colorectal cancer, leukemia, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma found in the Province’s firefighting professionals. Firefighting is a dangerous career in many ways and that’s why they get paid what they do. They are hardly the “overpaid bums’ you make them out to be.

#275truth hammer on 04.01.12 at 11:16 am
#231, right on….kick the bums out…..we can easily contract out all the civil service jobs and get better productivity for less pay .
===========================

I’m sure all the business people and the politicians they work with to get the contracts will be extremely generous, honest, and kind and aim to lower our taxes when they lower the costs of the workers. No business person would ever ever want to get as much as they could out of government coffers (ie taxpayers), even if their politician friend could put in all kinds of fees, penalties, etc. and even keep those contracts secret and hidden from the public. I know for a FACT that the average business person out there will outright refuse tax hikes that would increase their profits. I know that business people will always pass on any savings to the taxpayer – its just their nature. Business wants to work for the greater good of the taxpayer, and they will offer their services above-board. Any savings will also be given back to the taxpayer…no way that gov/biz would want to just keep all that saved money. After about 10 years of the gov/biz marriage, we’ll all have amazing public services like we’ve never seen before, we’ll all pay almost no tax (because biz will pass on all the oodles and oodles of savings to us in their usual generosity), and we’ll live happily ever after. We’ll be richer than we think!

Soldiers have the most dangerous job of all, and the front-line soldiers are put most in the line of fire. So, by that logic, they should be paid more than financial executives right? Uh-huh, good luck with that argument.

Most cops get into the job because of the power, adrenaline, get to carry a gun, wear the uniform, get the pension, don’t have to study much.

Firefighters are brave, but so are the volunteer ones. I bet you’d have no shortage of volunteer firefighters in the city if you just provided a stipend of $100 for each fire call. First 10 guys to the hall get the cash. Or however it’s done with the volunteer brigades. Getting rid of firefighters would save millions. Then, you could start on getting rid of the polices taxes, er, tickets. Absolute thievery, especially the multinova crap where you get the ticket in the mail. Completely excessive and not progressive at all.

You’ve bought into the nanny state belief system. We do not require all these layers of expensive control systems.
Some examples: much of Canada is taken care of by volunteer rural firefighters! In the cities, majority of calls are medical related. It’s true. We should have a few medics and fewer firefighters.

Border control: it has little effect upon our domestic crime rates, and one can purchase any illegal drug at most any high school or bar, nation wide. It’s not working! So why are we paying?

Driver licences have little to do with ongoing driving safety and accidents. Many of us got the piece of paper at age 16 and never looked back. We pay drivers licence fees and licence plate fees. For what? An outsourced money-printing scheme for 3rd party suppliers?
Also see (E-health billion dollar Ontario scandal).

Soldiers: if ever our cities were under attach we’d all take up arms and be done with it. Do not fall for the overseas invasions and “global obligations”. That one rural Canadian farm boy dies fighting overseas, for wealthy industrialists, indcated the level of criminality running our tax farm.

Doctors: we have an over used and over absued systems which creates little in terms of healing. Did you notice the billionaries are always begging us for “cancer research” funds? Billionaire CIBC’s “run for the cure”, and so on. Are you buying it?

Skilled trades have so far been more or less unregulated especially in anything related to working with wood . Anyone can go buy some tools and get a job on a framing crew or in a workshop and do wood working. May be you will learn something along the way , may be not but you didn’t need formal training/ apprenticeship or a license to get the job. I know ,I have seen for myself. In my case I went to college to learn about carpentry and then worked with a stairbuilder to learn how to make stairs. I have worked for other stair builders also and I know that no one was required to show any credentials to get a job.
I had to compete with others who knew far less than myself. I was never able to earn enough per hour to buy my first house and look for a mate and start a family. If anyone can be a tradesman without the training and the credentials then the value of learning a trade is cheapened to the point where those with skills are impoverished because they are not paid much more than those that have no training at all. All have become dime a dozen laborers working for minimum wage or something close to it.

Now with alot of guys like myself priced out of the real estate market and construction dropping off a cliff through lack of demand by people like me. I find myself unemployed and looking for work and or retraining.
I only require that the work be legal, moral, interesting and pay enough to enable me to live in the country I work in with style. I am fed up with working for what amounts to nothing.

On the contrary, government could have said no to social progams, political correctness and government borrowing but they didn’t. It could have maintained a policy of running a lean and mean business that would never go broke and never attempt go beyond its basic functions and authority. It could have through thrift and saving built up a fund to earn income to fund government through thick and thin taxes or no taxes for hundreds of years maybe thousands and maintained its independance and authority. There is no way you can budget for social programs as there is unlimited potential demand for entitlements and that leads to debt, unreasonable taxation, regulations, ZIRP and ruination of the value of what passes for money and the country in general.
All because the government won’t say no to debt and deficits. To correct and clean up the mess the world is in you must have proper leadership in government.
It is the one thing that is needed and does not currently exist. Politicians and their supporters would oppose corrective measures therefore they must find out the hard way what the consequences of their folly is and suffer for it. Those that won’t be corrected must learn the hard way.

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The views expressed are those of the author, Garth Turner, a Raymond James Financial Advisor, and not necessarily those of Raymond James Ltd. It is provided as a general source of information only and should not be considered to be personal investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell securities. Investors considering any investment should consult with their Investment Advisor to ensure that it is suitable for the investor's circumstances and risk tolerance before making any investment decision. The information contained in this blog was obtained from sources believed to be reliable, however, we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete. Raymond James Ltd. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund.